


Nothing Breaks Like A Heart

by GemAuthor



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-07 09:37:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 55,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17363561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GemAuthor/pseuds/GemAuthor
Summary: Charity tells Tracey and Rhona about her relationship with Vanessa. *Contains spoiler for upcoming episodes*





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Please be patient with me. This is the first fan-fic I have ever written.  
> It does contain a spoiler for what is coming up.

Beep, beep, beep, beep.

Charity Dingle closes her eyes and rubs her forehead. The past twenty-four hours have been some of the longest of her life. She couldn’t remember a time when she had felt so scared. She didn’t think she had been this scared even when Jai and Declan had both tried to kill her. Back then, she could rely on her own instincts and her God-given strength to survive. But now, now she was helpless. It didn’t matter how strong she was, how brave and determined to survive she was, there was nothing she could do to help the woman lying in front of her. 

Vanessa Woodfield had stormed into Charity’s life, drunk, feisty and angry. At first Charity had just found her slightly amusing. She got them both locked in the cellar and instead of going mad at Vanessa and calling someone to get them out of the cellar, she decided to see just how far she could push the little blonde vet. Vanessa, she thought, would be boring, have no bite and no comeback to anything Charity said, but boy was she wrong. She was spunky and not afraid to say what was on her mind. 

One thing was clear, she didn’t like Charity. Then again, who did. No one in the village particularly liked her. Even most of her own family just tolerated her for Debbie and Noah’s sake. Charity had never really had any form of interaction with Vanessa before. They only spoke in the bar when Vanessa ordered her drink. She very rarely ever sat and drank it at the bar, opting for the comfort of one of the tables instead with Rhona or Tracey and Leyla. 

Charity listens to the constant beeping of the machines as she thinks back to the moment that she first kissed Vanessa. She had always thought Vanessa was attractive. She even said it to Megan once “His daughters aren’t as stupid as they are pretty”. That night in the cellar though she felt like she was looking at Vanessa for the first time. How had she never noticed just how beautiful her eyes were before. How had she never noticed just how soft and full Vanessa’s lips were? She had kissed her to shock her and shut her up. It ended up being the best decision of her life.  
“Charity…….Charity?”  
She opens her eyes and looks to her right where Tracey and Rhona are sitting.  
“Yeah?” she croaks out, her voice hoarse from hours of crying.  
“Do you want anything from the canteen?” Tracey asks, “A coffee? A sandwich?”  
Charity swallows, wincing at the sting in her throat. “I’m ok with my water thanks.”  
Tracey gives a single nod and looks towards the bed where her sister lay. “Yeah, I’m not in the mood for anything either. Do you want anything Rhona?”  
Rhona just shakes her head, not taking her eyes off her best friend. “I can’t believe we are here. That he hurt her like this. She must have been so scared.”  
Charity feels a single tear slide down her cheek as she looks back towards Vanessa. Her woman. Her Love. Her life. The woman who someone had tried to take away from her so brutally. “She was scared,” Charity says, “but not for herself. For Johnny. That….monster had taken him and…..she didn’t even realise how badly she was hurt because she wasn’t scared for herself. She was scared for Johnny.”  
Tracey takes a deep breath and asks the question that has been on her mind since this whole thing had started. “What happened exactly….Well, I know what happened, but…..what did she say when she called you?”

Charity stomps into the bar, anger and confusion coursing through her. Where had that argument come from? Why did she have to walk out like that? She always wanted to resolve things between them, not run away from her.  
“What’s with the face mother?” Debbie asks in her normal bored tone. Most of the time she can’t be doing with her mother and her drama’s, but her mum looked both angry and upset, and that piqued Debbie’s interest.  
“Women, that’s what’s the matter. Why do you all have to have such temperamental moods and a knack of taking things the wrong way!”  
Chaz shakes her head, trying to make sense of what Charity has just said. “What?”  
Charity leans forward on the bar and huffs. “You heard”  
Robert laughs. “You are aware that you are a woman, too, Charity, right?”  
Charity glares at Robert, which only makes him laugh even more.  
Chaz sighs. “Right, what have you done this time?”  
Charity stands upright and pouts. Why does everyone always think everything that goes wrong is her fault? Granted she had made some monumental mistakes in the past and she often acts without thinking, but she would like to think she has been a bit better behaved since Vanessa came into her life. Except of course blurting out that Megan was having a fling with Graham. Oh, and the Dawn thing……  
“Why is it always me that has to have done something wrong?”  
Debbie, Robert, Chaz and even Laurel all laugh.  
“I’m being serious, why me?”  
Chaz rubs her cousins arm and gives her a small smile. The Chaz everyone knows and loves is slowly starting to come back to them. Charity knows that she will never be the same again. Who would be after such a loss. Charity knew herself how the loss of a baby altered who you are.  
“Because you are Charity Dingle, The gobber-mouth of the dales. The one who is always putting her foot in it. The one who never knows when to stop talking. The one who—”  
“Yes, alright, I get your point. Vanessa and I had an argument. Well, we….no yeah, we had an argument. Now she stormed out with Johnny.”  
“She will come back. It was about time you had a big bust-up to be honest. It’s not normal how happy you two are,” Chaz comments before she moves away to serve Laurel.  
Paddy walks into the pub looking all flustered, as usual, and points right at Charity. “What the hell is wrong with your girlfriend? She all but ran me over a second ago.”  
Charity frowns in confusion. Vanessa had driven off nearly ten minutes ago. She had watched her go. Listened until she could hear her car no more. “When?”  
“Just now, pulling out the back of the pub. She was driving like a lunatic.” He places both hands on the bar and leans forward and asks, “What have you done this time?”  
“She was pulling out the pub carpark? She wasn’t coming back?”  
Paddy shakes his head. “Driving like Lewis Hamilton she was.” Paddy lifts his head and starts sniffing. “Can…what’s….can anyone else smell anything burning?”  
Charity is about to reply when her phone buzzes in her back pocket. She pulls it out and frowns when she sees Vanessa’s name flash across her screen. Charity didn’t think she would see Vanessa again for a good few hours. She presumed she would probably take Johnny somewhere for his tea and then come home when he was due to go to bed.  
“See, I told you she wouldn’t be mad for long,” Chaz says from over her shoulder. “Are you going to answer it?”  
Normally in a situation like this Charity would let her voicemail get it, but her gut tells her she needs to answer this call, that something isn’r right.  
“Hello?”  
“Charity, please, help me he has Johnny. He…there is a fire and he has my baby.”  
Charity’s blood runs cold at the sound of desperation and fear in Vanessa’s voice. “Babe, who has Johnny? What fire, where are you?”  
“Carpark, I’m in the car park. Use the private door, the customer one is one fire. Charity, please!”  
It was then she smells it, burning, fire, a smell that took her right back to the fire at home farm.  
“Shit! There’s smoke coming from under the door!” Rodney shouts as he stumbles out from the customer toilets.  
Charity turns on her heel, ignoring the shouts from Chaz and Paddy to help, as she runs through the back room and out of their private door. Her skin prickles with fear when she sees the fire, which has taken hold of one of the bigger bins and the customer back entrance. She pauses for a second, trying to see Vanessa. Confusion takes over as she remembers Paddy’s words.  
“Just now, pulling out the back of the pub. She was driving like a lunatic”  
Then she hears it. A sound that will live with her forever. Vanessa, groaning and crying out for her baby. Charity follows the sound and runs when she catches sight of Vanessa kneeling on the floor. Close to the bin. Way too close to the bin for Charity’s liking.  
“Babe, what the hell has happened?”  
Vanessa turns to face her, her face pale and her voice shaking. “I tried to stop him, Charity. I really did, but he hurt me and then he took Johnny in my car. You have to go, Charity. You have to find my baby.”  
Fear shoots through Charity as the magnitude of the situation sinks in. Whoever has done this has Johnny. Vanessa’s Johnny. Her Johnny. Their Johnny.  
Robert, Paddy, Marlon, and bob all run out, armed with fire extinguishers and fire blankets.  
Charity quickly relays to them what Vanessa has just told her. Bob pulls his phone out and starts to call the police and the fire brigade. Charity tells Bob Vanessa’s car registration and Bob takes charge of the rest of the call as Charity turns her focus back onto her girlfriend.  
“Come on, we need to get you inside,” Charity says gently as she trys to get Vanessa off the floor and away from the fire. She gently grips Vanessa’s arms and starts to try and lift her. Vanessa screams, stopping Charity dead in her tracks. Paddy and Robert look over at them, worry etched onto their features as they take in everything that has happened.  
“My baby, Charity, you need to get him back.”  
Charity grips Vanessa’s arm tighter. “I will, Vanessa, I promise you I will. But first I need to get you away from this fire.”  
Charity tries to lift her again and Vanessa tries to push Charity’s hands off her and that’s when Charity notices it, the blood coating both of Vanessa’s hands.  
“Ness, you’re bleeding?”  
Vanessa looks down at her hands, her eyes glazing over. “Yeah, he stabbed me.”  
Charity felt like her world was suddenly spinning out of control and there was nothing she could do to stop it.  
“But it’s not that bad. Find him, Charity. Find my little boy.”

“That’s when she passed out,” Charity whispers. Reliving that moment wasn’t something she wanted to do. She knew she would have to again and again though. The police were coming back to take further statements. And she was sure it would be the main feature in her nightmares from now on.  
“At least he is safe and sound now. From the sounds of things, he thinks he went on a little adventure,” Tracey says.  
Charity smiles at the thought of the calm, quiet little boy she had come to love as her one of own. Thankfully he was none the wiser as to what had happened to his mother. He didn’t know the danger he had been in. The monster, as Charity was now calling him, had left Johnny outside the village, just by the factory, before driving off and hiding himself away. Jai of all people had been the one to find him. Rushing him back into the village, convinced he had somehow managed to escape the pub.  
“He’s happy and safe with Grandad right now. And grandad is probably feeding him all the sweets he can find,” Rhona said with a soft laugh.  
Frank had wanted to stay at the hospital, but with Charity and Tracey refusing to leave Vanessa’s side, and Johnny needing looking after, he had opted to take care of his Grandson for the night. He promised he wouldn’t be back first thing in the morning, if they kept texting him every hour on the hour.  
A nurse walks in and smiles at the three women sat around Vanessa’s bed. They had originally said that only one person could stay, but it had fallen on death ears. The ward matron had eventually given in and let all three of them stay, as long as they didn’t get in the way.  
The nurse checks Vanessa’s vital signs and writes her findings down on Vanessa’s chart.  
“Is everything still ok?” Charity asks.  
“Yes, everything is as we would expect it to be.”  
“When do you think she will come round?” Tracey asks, for what must have been the hundredth time since Vanessa left the operating theatre.  
“When she is ready,” the nurse says with a reassuring smile. “Her body has been through a horrific trauma and it needs time to heal. Some people come around from their operation when the aesthetic wears off, but others don’t. She will wake up when her body decides it is time.”  
She gives the three women a reassuring smile before quietly leaving the room.  
Charity takes Vanessa’s right hand and holds it between both of hers. It’s weird, holding her hand and not feeling Vanessa’s delicate yet strong fingers squeezing her hand back. Charity had never been one for hand holding before Vanessa. She couldn’t wrap her head around why you would want to walk down the street holding hands with your partner, hands getting all sweaty and sticky. But then Vanessa had taken her hand one day whilst they were walking down Hotten High street, and it all made sense. The feeling of closeness, the need to touch. Since then she had taken every opportunity she could to take hold of Vanessa’s hand.  
“You take as long as you need, babe. We will be here.”  
The three women resume sitting in a comfortable silence for what feels like hours before Tracey asks something that Charity was not expecting.  
“When did you two hook up again?”  
Charity blinks slowly, sure she had misheard Tracey. “What?”  
“I know about your kiss in the cellar and what happened the night after that. I don’t, however, know when you started sleeping together again. As far as I knew she hated your guts. I mean, I was even setting up on dates.”  
“Is this really an appropriate conversation to be having right now?” Rhona asks.  
“Well, there’s not much else to talk about is there. And, I know you guys were seeing each other around Christmas, and Paddy caught you in the cellar she told me that, but she told me that not so long ago. Ness has always been quite private about what goes on between the two of you. And she never actually told me that you two were hooking up again. I didn’t know you were until she called you dull in the pub. I only knew about that because Bernice told Kerry who then called me.”  
Charity rolls her eyes. The worst thing about living in the village was the gossip. Although, she couldn’t deny she loved listening to it all when she was behind the bar.  
“Like I said, Tracey, I don’t think this is—”  
“It’s ok,” Charity says, directing her smile at Rhona. This wasn’t the type of conversation she thought she would be having whilst she sat there waiting for her girlfriend to wake up. But the happy memories might, even for a second, push away the sound of Vanessa’s desperate screams, the feeling of her going limp in Charity’s arms as Charity screamed out for help.  
“Who knows, she might be able to hear us. I bet she’d love to hear it all from your point of view.”  
Charity smiles at the thought of Vanessa listening in. If she can hear them then Charity knows if she tweaks or exaggerates on a few details Vanessa will call her out on it the second she wakes up.  
Charity takes a deep breath and kisses the back of the hand she gently cradles between hers. “It all started on the evening of Issacs’s christening…….”


	2. Two

“It all started on the evening of Issacs’s christening…….”

16/11/17- The Woolpack. 

“Charity, can you not just cover my break. I know it’s your day off, but I desperately need a break. I’ve been at the christening, I’ve been—”   
“Yeah, aright, Chaz, I’ll cover your break,” Charity huffs as she throws her magazine onto the kitchen table. “As long as you do the delivery tomorrow.”  
Chaz crosses her arms across her chest and raises her eyebrow. “I’ve done the last five early deliveries. So, no, you can get your lazy arse out of bed for once, Charity, or so help me god I will find a loophole in the contract and find a way of getting you out of here.”  
Charity grins. She knows Chaz would never do that. Not just because she has been threatening to do it since the day Charity signed the contract, but she knows Chaz secretly loves having her around. When they aren’t arguing, and Charity isn’t pissing her off, they had a lot of fun.   
“Whatever. Just don’t take too long, yeah. I wanna try my new clothes on.”  
Chaz shoves her as she walks past. “I’ll be as long as I like, thank you very much.”  
Charity walks out into the bar, surprised at how quiet it has gone. Chrissie and Lachlan sit where Jimmy and his awful coat had previously been. Paddy and Rhona sit at separate tables, Doug and Dianne sit at the bar, and the rest of the punters are people from outside the village. 

She cleans up the empty glasses and crisp packets and is just about to start wiping the bar when the door swings open. She looks over her shoulder and smiles as she sees Vanessa walk in. She had enjoyed toying with her earlier on. Mentioning how cute her nose is when it twitches. She loved the bite she got back, too. Reminding her that Vanessa was not the meek and feeble person Charity always thought she was.   
Vanessa’s attention however was not on the barmaid but on Paddy and Rhona. She looks concerned, and for a second Charity is contemplating leaving her to it, but the desire to see if she can make her nose twitch again is too strong.   
Vanessa stops at the bar and Charity hurries over to greet her.   
“Hey. Sorry about before, you know, winding you up,” Charity says as she grabs a beer mat.  
Vanessa raises an eyebrow. “Isn’t that what you do?”  
“I do a lot of things,” Charity replies as she leans forward against the bar, “I’m free later, if you want me to fill you in,” she adds flirtatiously, pressing her lips together.

Vanessa tries her best to look like she isn’t affected by Charity’s suggestion, but Charity doesn’t miss the hitch in her breathing as she glanced away before she walks towards Rhona. Charity smirked as she watches the blonde vet walk over to her friend. She hadn’t paid much attention to Rhona, other than the give her a smile, so it was only then that she noticed how downtrodden she looked. Vanessa and Rhona speak for at least ten minutes. Vanessa occasionally looking over her shoulder at Paddy before looking back and Rhona and rubbing her arm.   
Charity tries not to look interested, but it’s clear something was going on with Rhona and Paddy. She didn’t suspect they were sleeping together or anything like that. Hell, she knew he wouldn’t be sleeping with her. She heard him and Chaz at night. There was no way the guy had enough energy to be doing that with two women. Rhona walks over to the bar and orders an orange juice as Vanessa types away on her phone.   
“Can I have an orange juice for Vanessa please, and a bag of crisps for myself.”  
“Course,” Charity says as she gets the order sorted. “You ok? You seem a bit down in the dumps?”  
Rhona eyes her suspiciously. Knowing Charity she was after a bit of gossip, and Rhona was not about to give her that. “Just tired. Busy day with work and everything.” She pays for the drink and crisps and walks back to the table.  
Vanessa and Rhona must have sat there nursing their drinks and looking miserable for another half an hour before Rhona leaves. Charity expects Vanessa to leave with her. Those two always seemed attached at the hip. What she wasn’t expecting however was Vanessa to casually walk over to the bar, place her empty glass on a beer mat and beckon Charity over with her finger.  
“Yes?” Charity says slowly, biting back a remark about being summoned in her own pub.   
“Mine. Eight o-clock.”  
“What?”  
“Be at mine for eight o-clock.”  
“For?”  
“So you can fill me in on all these things you can do.”  
Charity lets out a surprised laugh, earning her a frown in response. She clears her throat and smiles at the beautiful blonde. “Eight o-clock, no latter.”  
Vanessa gives a single nod before giving Charity the smallest of smiles. “See you later then.”  
Charity watches her go and has to resit the urge to punch the air. She honestly thought she had blown it with Vanessa after her performance in the pub after they had slept together. She didn’t think Vanessa would speak to her again, let alone anything else.   
Chaz emerges from the back of the pub and stops short when she sees Charity’s beaming smile. “Why are you smiling? Who have you conned out of their money?”  
Charity rolls her eyes at Chaz. “I’m just having a good day. Oh, by the way I’ll be going out later. Around eight, so you’ll have to see if Vic can cover your break.”  
“Where are you going?”  
“None of your business,” Charity says in a sing song voice as she makes her way out into the back room. Noah was staying with Debbie tonight, and Moses was with Ross, so she didn’t have to sort childcare out. She can have a nice long shower and make sure she looked good enough to eat. She was going to knock Vanessa’s socks off, but without making it look like she was trying to hard.   
She knew the art of seduction. She was an expert at it. One of her favourite tricks was making it seem like the seduction was the other persons idea. She would start the gently flirting, and then let them carry it on. She would dress nice, but not too seductive. She would make the other person feel like they were in control, when they were anything but.  
That’s what she wanted to do tonight with Vanessa. She wants the other woman to feel like she was leading whatever was going to happen between the two of them. She knew Vanessa will be nervous. She was the first time they were together. She knew she would also be apprehensive about going there again with Charity, especially after what happened last time, but if she felt like the ball was in her court she might feel more confident.   
Charity spends the next few hours showering and pampering. She knows she looks good, and people find her very attractive. Heads turned where ever she goes, men and women looking over their shoulder for a second look. She still liked to really make an effort when she was to spend time with someone she liked.   
“You look….nice,” Chaz says suspiciously as Charity walks behind the bar to grab a bottle of wine.   
“Thanks,” Charity replies sarcastically. “You make it sound like I have never looked nice before.”  
Chaz points at Charity’s deep red top, the cleavage plunging low. “That’s a ‘I want to have sex top’ if ever I have seen one. And the jeans….they’re very tight.”  
Charity choses to ignore the comment about the top. “They are tight, skinny jeans, Chaz, they’re supposed to look like that. Right, don’t wait up for me. I have no idea what time I am going to be home.”  
“Where are you going?”  
Charity grabs her handbag and slings it over her shoulder. She walks out from behind the bar and gives Chaz a wave and a wink. “Bye!”  
She walks out of the pub, smiling at Rodney as she passed him. It was already dark, which she was glad about. She wasn’t sure how Vanessa would feel about people seeing her go into her house. They weren’t friends, and most of the village knew about their one-night-stand, so if people saw her going in to her house word would spread fast. It was that thought that made her walk right past Vanessa’s front door and head around the back. No one was around, but she never knew who was looking through their curtains.   
She approaches the back door and listens carefully. She can hear the low hum of the radio playing one of the latest pop songs she can’t stand. She knocks gently, waiting a few seconds before knocking again.   
“Hello?” Vanessa whispers through the door.  
“Hey, it’s me….”  
“Why have you come around the back?”  
“I didn’t think you would want people seeing me at your front door.”  
“Good thinking. Wait, not that I have a problem as such, but you know what the gossipers in this village are like. In ten minutes, even the vicar in the next village would know about it, and I—”  
“Vanessa,” Charity interrupts  
“Yes?”  
Charity bites back a laugh. “Are you going to let me in?”  
“Oh, right, yeah.”  
Vanessa opens the door and Charity’s breath catches in the back of her throat. Vanessa looks beautiful. Her hair is down, flowing in waves past her shoulders. She is wearing a blue blouse that fits snuggly against her ample chest. The dark denim skinny jeans she’s wearing hugged her strong thighs, thighs Charity was desperate to feel wrapped around her waist as she thrust her fingers inside Vanessa once again.   
“Hi….you look….nice.”  
Charity lets out a soft laugh. “So I have been told. Right back at ya though, blondie.”  
Vanessa steps back to let Charity in. “Don’t call me that. My step-dad used to call me that and I hated it.”  
Charity taps her forehead. “Duly noted.”  
She walks into the kitchen and places the wine on the kitchen table. She scans the kitchen and the living room, noting how different it looked, and felt, to when she lived here. It definitely has a more homely feel to it.  
“Wine. Nice touch. You’re not going to just drag me off to bed then. You actually want to socialise a bit first?”  
Charity smirks and turns back to face Vanessa. “I’m not an animal, babe. I can resist my urges long enough for us to have a glass of wine.”  
Vanessa grabs two glasses and gives Charity a disbelieving look. “Not how I remember it last time.”  
Charity watches as she opens the bottle and pours them both a glass of wine. “I don’t remember you complaining, babe.”  
Vanessa lets out a little laugh. “No, I definitely wasn’t complaining.”   
She pours the wine into the glasses and passes Charity hers before holding her own glass up. “Here’s to…..whatever this is.”  
They clink their glasses and Charity titled her head to the side contemplating exactly what was happening between the two women. Did she want a relationship? Hell no. But she did however want a bit of fun. Someone to take to bed, to keep her warm at night. And while she could go out to any bar in Hotten any night of the week and find someone to do that with, for some unknown reason the thought of taking a faceless stranger to bed instead of Vanessa makes her feel slightly nauseous. Maybe she is getting too old to be picking random men and women up from bars. Or maybe she just likes the thought of having a casual, purely sexual relationship with someone she knows and likes.  
“How about two single women who fancy the pants off each other, wanting to have a little bit of fun together?” she suggests, watching Vanessa over the rim of her glass.  
“Fancy the pants off each other?”  
“Well, I wouldn’t be here if I thought you were a minger, would I?”  
Vanessa laughs. “No, I suppose not.”  
Charity places her wine down and walks around the table. She stops right in front of Vanessa, smiling when the younger woman’s breath hitches and her eyes widen. The fact that she has this effect of Vanessa without having even touched her yet sends a thrill down her spine.   
“Speaking of pants, your arse looks great in those jeans.”  
Vanessa, to Charity’s surprise, wiggles her bum and grins. “I know.”  
Charity lets out a surprised laugh. Everything about this woman so far had been a surprise, and Charity hopes it will stay that way.   
“But, before we do, we need to set some ground rules.”  
“Ok….” Charity says slowly, unsure of where this was about to go.   
“No telling everyone in the pub tomorrow. No telling anyone at all. I don’t really like people knowing my business.”  
Charity ducks her head. She still feels bad about what she did to Vanessa. She only did it because, not that she would admit it to anyone, but she was jealous. She thought that they’d had a fantastic night together. Vanessa had seemed so into it, so to see her in the pub the next day on a date with Daz had hurt more than she would ever admit.   
“Yeah, I promise. Sorry about all that by the way. I was a cow. It was more about how I felt than embarrassing you.”  
Vanessa frowns. “What do you mean?”  
Charity, realising she had said too much, knows she needed to lie her way out of this one. “My ego was bruised, babe. You know me, think I’m the best, don’t I. How can you want to go on a date with him when you’d just had the best night of your life with me.”  
Vanessa hums, and Charity knows she doesn’t believe her. But it doesn’t matter, because Vanessa’s glass joins hers on the table and she was back to looking at Charity like she was good enough to eat. Charity reaches forward and wraps her arms around Vanessa’s waist, pulling the smaller woman’s body flush against her own.   
“Although if you go on a date with someone else tomorrow, in my pub, after another night of endless orgasms then I can’t promise I won’t be pissed again.”  
Vanessa leans up and brushes her lips gently against Charity’s as she says. “Endless orgasms?”  
Charity grins. “You bet, babe. As many as you can take.”  
Vanessa groans and slams her lips against Charity’s. Charity moans into the kiss, hardly believing how good it feels to have Vanessa’s soft, sweet lips against her own again. Vanessa pulls away before they can deepen the kiss and pulls herself out of Charity’s embrace. She grabs the wine and heads for the stairs. She glances over her shoulder and winks as she says, “Let’s start with four and see how we go from there.”

11/01/19- Hotten General Hospital 

“Four! In one night!” Tracey shrieks.  
“Jesus, Trace, remember where we are, yeah?” Charity scolds. “And yes….Well, there was more, but I’m not going into details.”  
“Why?”  
“Because she is your sister. If she wants you to know about our sex life, then she can tell you herself.”  
Tracey huffs. “I don’t need to be told about your sex life. I have listened to it enough.”  
Rhona laughs. “So, after that you just started seeing each other then?”  
“Yeah we did. After that night we were both so busy with work, and I had Moses because Ross went away, so we only managed a cheeky snog behind the back of the pub. But about six days later Noah went away with the school and Moses was with Ross, so I asked if she wanted to come around to mine. I text her. First time I had text her. I didn’t think she would respond if I was being honest.”  
“Why?” Rhona asked.  
“I dunno,” Charity shrugs. “After our second night together, we didn’t actually say if we would meet up again. She gave me her number and I gave her mine, but that was it. No further plans. The only reason we snogged behind the pub was because she was walking through the back as I was emptying the bins. We hardly spoke. She just pushed me up against the wall and snogged my face off. Not that I was complaining.”  
“So what happened when you sent the message then?” Tracey asks, unable to hide the excitement in her voice.   
“Well……..”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys are still enjoying it. More to come soon :)


	3. Three

“So what happened when you sent the message then?”   
“Well……..”

22/11/17- The Woolpack  
“Have you got any plans for your night off?” Debbie asks as she takes a seat at the bar. “Seeing as you’re shipping off both of your kids for the night?”  
Charity tuts. “I am not shipping them off. You offered to have Noah stay with you guys for the night, and Ross was desperate to see Moses after his holiday.”  
Debbie raises her eyebrow. “He only got back this morning.”  
“Well, he called last night and asked if he could have him. Moz is desperate to see him too. I think he likes Ross more than me.”  
“Hardly a surprise,” Debbie mutters.  
Charity choses to ignore her daughter. She loves her daughter more than life itself, but she will never be good enough in Debbie eyes. Not that she can blame her kid for how she feels about her, she can’t blame any of them for it. She has never been the best mum, she knows that, and no matter how hard she tries she change she just can’t. She loves them though, more than life itself. They know that at least.  
“So, no plans then?” Debbie asks again.  
Charity shakes her head. “Nope. I’ll probably have a bath, watch a movie and crash out. Between work and having Moses full time this week, I’m running on fumes, babe.”  
Debbie laughs. “Welcome to motherhood, mother.”  
Charity ignores her again.   
“What about you? What have you got planned for this sibling night?”  
“Pizza and a movie.”  
“Sounds exciting,” Charity says with fake enthusiasm. She couldn’t imagine anything worse.   
“Well, it’s better than your night. At least I will have some company.”  
“I could have some company if I wanted to, babe,” Charity says stubbornly.   
“Yeah? Who?” Debbie asks with a laugh.

Vanessa’s beautiful, smiling face flashes in Charity’s mind and she bites back a smile. They’ve seen each other once since their second night together. It was a quick, ten-minute snog around the back of the pub. It was hot and messy and had left Charity aching for more. One thing Vanessa Woodfield did exceedingly well was kissing. Charity had never been kissed by anyone in that way that Vanessa kissed her. Like she needed to kiss Charity like she needed to breathe.   
They hadn’t even spoken to each other during their snog. Just a hello and a goodbye. They hadn’t arranged to meet each other again, or even spoken about if there would be a next time. The first time they had slept together Charity had said ‘see you next time, yeah?’, but she hadn’t the second time, and now she felt like kicking herself for it. To be fair, Vanessa hadn’t reached out to her either. If they hadn’t had their steamy snog, she might think Vanessa was avoiding her. She hadn’t been in the pub since their second night together, not when Charity was working anyway. She hadn’t text her either. They had exchanged numbers, yet she hadn’t heard anything from her.   
“I might have company actually.”  
Debbie scoffs. “Who?”  
Charity gives her a smug look. “None of your business”  
Diane walks into the pub, dragging Debbie’s attention away from Charity. Charity takes this opportunity to send a message to Vanessa. She bites her lip as she thinks about what she should write. She doesn’t want to seem desperate, but she also doesn’t want to come across like she couldn’t care if Vanessa comes round or not. As she is thinking it through a conversation from their last encounter flashes through her mind. 

 

“Harder, babe, harder,” Charity says as Vanessa drives two fingers into her in a maddeningly slow and gentle pace.  
“I love how direct you are,” Vanessa says as she ups the tempo of her fingers, thrusting them into the other woman faster and harder.  
“What?” Charity gasps  
“I love how you get straight to the point.” Vanessa licks around Charity’s nipple before sucking it into her mouth. “How you just tell me what you want. No messing around. It’s such a turn on.”  
Charity whimpers as Vanessa bites down gently on her nipple and uses her thumb to flick at her clit. “Duly noted, babe,”

Charity grins. Straight to the point. She can do that. She opens her messages and starts to type. ‘ I want to see you, come over tonight’. She presses send and shoves her phone back into her pocket. The ball is firmly in Vanessa’s court now. 

 

An hour and a half later, Charity still hasn’t heard back from Vanessa. She doesn’t know whether to feel annoyed or embarrassed. She hates putting herself out there and getting rejected, but if Vanessa was going to reject her she could at least let her know about it instead of ignoring her. She is about to give up all hope when her phone buzzes in her back pocket.   
‘Sorry its taken me this long to reply. I had to sort out someone to have Johnny. What time?’  
Charity’s grin stretches from ear to ear as she sends her reply.   
‘ASAP! Still worked up over that snog babe’  
Vanessa’s reply makes her laugh. “Wow….ok……I’ll be round soon’.  
Charity takes a deep breath and smiles. It is going to be a good night. 

11/01/19- Hotten General Hospital  
“So, from then on how often did you two see each other?” Rhona asks.  
“A couple of times a week. I’d sneak round once Noah was in bed, when I didn’t have Moses of course. The nights your Dad and Megan wanted Johnny to stay over theirs I would often spend the night. A lot of the time we would sneak in and out of each other’s houses. Looking back now it all seems a bit cheap. She deserves better than that.”  
Tracey looks over at her sister. “She was happy though. I remember thinking how happy she was looking around that time. Well, she’s been happy ever since.”  
Charity’s heart clenches in her chest. All she ever wants is to make Vanessa happy, to see her smile and hear her laugh, so to hear that other people have noticed her happiness makes her feel ten feet tall.   
“Did spend any time with her over Christmas?” Rhona asks suspiciously. “She invited me and Leo round to hers for Christmas day, and then around nine she suddenly became very tired and I felt like she wanted me to leave for some reason.”  
Charity grins.  
Rhona laughed. “I should have known it had something to do with you.”  
Tracey seems confused as she asks. “Wait, you went over to see her on Christmas day? A person you just wanted to have sex with?”  
“Well, I was very drunk…..”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the wonderful feedback :)


	4. Four

“Wait, you went over to see her on Christmas day? A person you just wanted to have sex with?”  
“Well, I was very drunk…..”

25/12/17  
Charity stumbles towards Vanessa’s house clutching a bottle of wine in her hand. She has had a lovely Christmas day over at the Dingles. Moses has been with her this year for the first time, until five o-clock when Ross came and picked him up. That’s when the fun really started for her. She didn’t want to be drunk when Ross picked him up, she would never hear the end of it, so she had held back on drinking too much until he was gone. Noah then asked if he could spend the night at the Wishing Well, something about playing on a new gadget of Samson’s. She agreed, knowing she would never hear the end of it if she didn’t. So she knew she could down the drinks without worrying about stumbling home with her son in tow.

Chaz started the drinking games and all the adults had joined in with vigour. There was nothing the Dingles like more than a good piss up. After a few hours though everyone had started to settle down and express their intentions to go home. Charity realised that she would be one of the only people going home alone, and she didn’t want to go home to an empty bed. Especially as Chaz and Paddy would no doubt be getting it on in the next room.

So, in her drunken stupor she text Vanessa asking if she could pop round for a bit. Vanessa, to her surprise. replied instantly and told her to come round about nine. She is just about to open Vanessa’s gate when her front door swings open and Rhona walks out. Charity, in her panic, and without thinking, throws herself over the stone wall and into the bushes that line Pearl and Harriet’s garden.   
She doesn’t have a problem with people knowing they were sleeping together, but Vanessa still wanted to be very hush hush about it. She had assured Charity it wasn’t because she was ashamed or embarrassed, she just hates people gossiping about her. She was the centre of the village gossip with Kirin and then with the paternity confusion with Johnny, so she didn’t want to go through that again. And Charity honestly respected that. Although throwing herself into a bush may have been a bit too far.  
“Ouch!”  
“What was that?” She hears Rhona ask.  
“What was what?” Vanessa asks.  
“Someone shouted ouch!”  
Vanessa laughs. “I think you’ve had one too many glasses of wine, Rhona.”

Rhona agrees and then tells Leo to say goodnight. She thanks Vanessa for her company and makes her way down Vanessa’s path. Far too slowly for Charity, who currently has a twig poking her in the last place you would want a twig poking you.   
“I’ll watch you walk home,” Vanessa says.  
Charity daren’t breath as Rhona and Leo walk past her. Leo’s eyes widen as they walk past the bush and his eyes meet Charity’s, but he doesn’t say anything. He just looks over his shoulder once more and then carries on walking home. Charity waits until Rhona is home before she calls out for help.  
“Vanessa!”  
“Who’s that!”  
“Me!”  
“Who is me?”  
“Charity!”  
She hears Vanessa make her way down the path. “Where are you?”  
“In the bush.”  
“In the where?”  
Charity lifts the arm holding the wine and waves it. “Here!”  
Vanessa covers her mouth with her hand as she walks over to where Charity is now struggling to get out of the bush. “What the hell are you doing in there?”  
“Didn’t want Rhona to see me, did I. I know how you feel about people knowing about us.”  
Vanessa laughs. “Charity, she knows we got it on in the cellar. She knows we are sleeping together.”  
Charity grumbles as she tries again to get out of the bush. She forgot about Rhona being stood at the bar after they emerged from the cellar. Vanessa laughs and takes the bottle from her hands. She places it on the floor and helps Charity out of the bush and over the wall. Charity brushes herself down and reaches down to grab the wine.   
“Come on, I definitely need this now.”  
Vanessa laughs and swipes at Charity’s bum, making her jump. “You had some leaves on your bum,” she offers as an explanation when Charity raises her eyebrow at her.   
They walk into Vanessa’s house and Charity kicks off her shoes, with some difficulty, and hangs up her coat.   
“Wine, babe?”  
Vanessa softly closes the door behind them and shushes Charity.   
“Johnny is asleep.”  
Charity frowns. “And?”  
“And, you’re shouting.”  
“Am I?”  
Vanessa winces and Charity giggles.   
“So am I.” In an exaggerated whisper she asks. “Do you want some wine.”  
Vanessa smiles. “Just one glass. You seem like you’ve already had quite a bit.”  
“We played a few drinking games. I kept losing so, yeah, I’ve had quite a bit.”  
Charity rather clumsily pours them both a glass of wine and joins Vanessa where she now sat on the sofa. Charity curls her legs underneath her body as she regards the other woman. She was wearing a hideous Christmas jumper and some baggy sweatpants, but Charity didn’t think she had ever seen anyone looking so beautiful.   
“Did you have a nice day?” Charity asks.  
“Yeah, I did actually. Just me Rhona and the boys, but it will lovely. You?”  
Charity nods. “I had Moses for the first time. It was lovely. He really gets it this year, so he was so excited. It was very cute.”  
Vanessa smiles softly. “Johnny was the same.”  
Charity reaches forward and runs her finger down Vanessa’s arm. “I thought you would say no when I text you.”  
Vanessa presses her lips together and nods slowly. “Well, no one wants to go to bed on their own at Christmas, do they?”  
Charity places her glass on the table and reaches for Vanessa’s and does the same. She takes both of Vanessa’s hands in hers and entwines their fingers.  
“How did you know I didn’t want to be on my own? I could have just wanted a bunk up.”  
Vanessa giggled. “Charity, your text message said, can I come round tonight, don’t fancy going to bed all on my own on Christmas .”  
Charity joins in with Vanessa’s giggling. “Maybe I’ve had more to drink that I first thought.”  
Vanessa laughs loudly at that and Charity mimics her actions from earlier, shushing her and pointing to the ceiling.   
“Do you want to watch a movie and go to bed or something?”  
Charity smirks. “I want the, or something, the something that Paddy interrupted the other day.”

There was nothing more frustrating than being on the verge of what was bound to be an incredible orgasm when Paddy bloody Kirk decides to walk in. She laughs looking back now when she thinks about what he must have seen. Charity laid back on the chair, Vanessa’s head in between her legs, eating her out with a gusto that Charity had never seen from the smaller woman before. She certainly likes it when Charity defends her. Vanessa was too embarrassed to carry on, and Charity was also quite conscious of how long they had been gone. She had only meant for Vanessa to meet her down there for a quick snog and a cheeky grope. She hadn’t expected the younger woman to push her onto the sofa and attack her jeans like a horny teenage boy. Not that she was complaining. 

“Oh, you do, do you?” Vanessa says softly as she moves on the sofa so she is straddling Charity. “What if you fall asleep half way through? You’re quite drunk, so it wouldn’t surprise me if you did.”  
Charity ducks her head down and starts peppering kisses up Vanessa’s neck, aiming for the spots she knows will have the smaller woman squirming on her lap in seconds. It amazes her how quickly she has come to know Vanessa’s body. With her past sexual partners, she was never really been interested in what part of their body set them off. Just like none of them bothered to find out her weak spots either.   
“Fall asleep, with you, Emmerdale’s tiny blonde rocket woman, not a chance.”  
Vanessa grabs Charity’s face between her hands. She kisses her, moaning as Charity’s tongue slides against hers.   
“Well, if you do, I will just have to find an interesting way of waking you up, won’t I?”  
Charity grins. “Hell yeah you will.”

11/01/19- Hotten General Hospital

“I knew I heard something!” Rhona exclaims as she shakes her head and starts to laugh. “Leo said there was a monster in the bush. Poor kid.”  
Tracey, who is laughing too, asks. “So, you just carried on like that. You just kept going round each other houses and having it off. Did you not ever just talk to each other. Like, have a chat and a cuppa and then go home?”  
“Not at first,” Charity admits as she looks over at her beautiful girlfriend. “But when it all kicked off with Joe, I felt like I needed someone to talk to. Someone who wasn’t a family member, and well I just found myself heading over to Ness’s.”  
Rhona smiles. “How did she react when she realised you weren’t there for sex?”  
Charity laughs softly. “Well, she was shocked to say the least.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today is the day! Poor Ness :(


	5. Five

“How did she react when she realised you weren’t there for sex?”  
“Well, she was shocked to say the least.”

06/01/18- Emmerdale Village

Charity sighs as she kicks her legs back underneath her body, the swing she is sat on rocking slowly back and forth following the motion of her legs. The last few days have been just one headache after another. She feels sick when she thinks about what her daughter is currently going through, how much pain she in in because of that man.  
Joseph Tate.   
She honestly does not know how Joe thinks he knows what happened between her and his father. He was hardly there. Lisa hadn’t been joking when she said he couldn’t be bothered with Joe. He hadn’t even told her he had a child until they had been together a few months. Poor little Joe was shipped off to boarding school. Out of sight out of mind. When he did come home Charity tried all she could to make the kid feel comfortable around her. She tried to play games with him, help him with whatever school work he was sent home with. He was a nice enough kid. He could be a brat at times, like the time he told the security guards in a shopping centre that she had kidnapped him, but other than that he was a quiet kid. Yeah, she felt bad that he was orphaned at such a young age, but that wasn’t her fault. His Dad chose to end his life. It was nothing to do with her. She may have broken Chris’s heart, but he chose to do what he did and she would be damned if anyone would blame her for it. 

She just can’t believe she practically pushed Debbie at him. Had she not encouraged Debbie to pursue him then all of this might not have happened. She scoffs as she thinks about that again. Of course it would have. He wouldn’t have stopped until he got what he wanted. His hatred for Charity, and all the things he thinks he knows about, her must have come from one person and one person only. Zoe Tate.

Charity feels anger well up insider of her as she thinks about Zoe. Truth be told, Zoe hasn’t crossed her mind in years. Charity hates living in the past and Zoe is a part of her history that she would rather forget. A typical Tate was Zoe. Charming and sweet on the outside, but twisted and evil on the inside. Zoe was Charity’s first relationship with a woman. It had felt different to all her other relationships, and not just because she was a woman, but because she genuinely made Charity feel like she cared. She told Charity she wanted her because she loved her, she saw her as a human, not just someone to warm her bed at night, a body to play with. All she wanted really was to control Charity, to own her, and after that she had vowed to never let anyone treat her like that again. 

 

She kicks back again and looks around the park. The village seems quiet today. A lot of people choosing to stay inside and hide away from the bitter winter wind that’s blowing through the village. She has only left the house because she can’t look at Debbie’s heartbroken face anymore. She knows that this isn’t her fault, that Joe has been told a version of events that aren’t true, from his twisted Auntie who still clearly holds a grudge against Charity for everything she did back then. Hearing Debbie sob, and even seeing Sarah look so sad, is taking its toll on her. Chaz isn’t being very sympathetic to any of them. Cain is just angry. Zac and Lisa are more concerned about making sure he doesn’t knock down their house, rightfully so, and all the other family members are just pussy footing around them, not quite sure what to say.   
Times like this make her wish she had a few mates she could turn to. Someone who could be an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on. She jumps off the swing and heads towards the church. Harriet would be a good option if Charity didn’t find her so patrioninsing at times. She would probably start babbling on about forgiveness and all that crap and Charity couldn’t be doing with all that. And, she wasn’t sure Harriet liked her enough to listen, even if that was her job. 

 

She makes her way towards the shop when she spots the postman stood outside Vanessa’s house. She watches as Vanessa opens the door and greats the postman with her big, beaming smile and signs for her parcel.   
Vanessa is a good listener. She thinks….Not that they have ever really had any deep, meaningful conversations, but she knows she was a rock for Rhona during the whole thing with Pierce, and when Charity does babble away about work or the kids she always listens, giving Charity her complete attention.   
And they are kind of friends……right?  
Vanessa spots her and gives her a small wave as the postman walks down her path. Charity waves back and then before she has time to think about it and how it is breaking all her self imposed rules, she breaks into a jog and heads towards Tug Ghyll.   
“Vanessa,” she shouts as the vet turns to go back inside her house. “Are you free?”  
Vanessa’s eyes widen as she looks around to see if anyone is about. “Um, not really, Johnny is here, and awake.”  
Charity pushes open Vanessa’s gate. “Yeah, I kinda figured he would be with you, babe. And, I wasn’t running over here for that.”  
Vanessa looks at her like she’s grown a second head. “You aren't? What have you come here for?”  
Charity shoves her hands in her coat pocket, suddenly nervous, which is ridiculous. She’s done things to this woman that would make a porn star blush. She’s spent hours worshiping every inch of Vanessa’s creamy soft skin, spent hours up on hours finding the most creative ways to make her come and scream out Charity’s name, yet the thought of asking her for a chat, to unload everything she’d feeling onto Vanessa’s shoulders suddenly feels too much.   
“A chat?”  
Vanessa’s eyebrows shoot up her forehead. “Chat?” she squeaks out. “A chat about what?”  
“About Joe, Debbie, everything that’s happened and why it always come back to me. Why it is always somehow my fault even if I didn’t actually do anything….” Charity rocks back on her heels. “But it doesn’t matter, I’ll just go and—"  
“No, come in, please,” Vanessa says softly, her shoulders relaxing. “I thought you had come to say you didn’t want this,” Vanessa gestures between the two of them, “to carry on anymore.”  
Charity smirks. “Oh, babe, I’m definitely nowhere near done with you yet.”  
Vanessa laughs. “Not bored of me yet then?” she asks, referencing to what Charity said to her after the whole debacle with Veronica.  
Charity walks to Vanessa’s front door and runs her finger down Vanessa’s nose, smirking as the other woman’s eyes darken. “Nowhere near done.”  
Vanessa quickly ushers her inside and shuts the front door behind them. Charity hangs up her coat and kicks off her shoes. She accepts the offer of a cuppa tea as she makes her way into the living room. Johnny is sat on the floor playing with some cars. She has only seen him once since she and Vanessa started their……sexual relationship. He is quite a shy kid. He looks over his shoulder and stares at her, as if seeing her for the first time. She gives him a little wave as she sits down on the sofa.   
“Hi, mate.”  
“Say hello to Charity, Johnny.”  
“Hello,” he whispers, ducking his head and turning his attention back to his cars.  
“He is shy, isn’t he?” Charity asks Vanessa. “Moses will talk to anyone, which isn’t always a good thing.”  
Vanessa smiles softly as she looks at her little boy. “He is, until you get to know him and he gets to know you, then he doesn’t shut up.”  
Vanessa carries the two cups over to the sofa and passes Charity her cup of tea. She sits down on the sofa sideways and tucks her legs under her body so she is facing Charity. Charity decides to mirror her positioning, which is no easy feat with her long legs.   
“This sofa is way too small.”  
Vanessa chuckles. “It was already here when I moved it, I would love a bigger one, but I doubt it would fit and I can’t really afford it. So, what exactly did you want to chat about?” Vanessa asks, emphasising the word chat.  
Charity signs and runs her left hand through her curls. “I suppose you have heard about what happened with Debbie and Joe.”  
Vanessa nods slowly. “I heard that he kicked her out. But I’m confused. I thought he was her boyfriend and I swear you said his name was Tom?”  
“We thought his name was Tom. Turns out his name is Joe Tate and he seduced Debbie, and then broke her heart to get back at me.”  
Vanessa frowns. “To get back at you? Why?”  
“I was married to his Dad, a long time ago. He was just a kid when I last saw him, which is why I didn’t recognise him.”  
Vanessa shakes her head, clearly confused. “But why has he come back now? What happened between you and his Dad?”  
Charity takes a large sip of her tea and begins telling Vanessa the whole story. Well, she intends to just tell her the basics, but Vanessa is so sweet in how she listens, giving Charity her full attention, getting angry on Charity’s behalf when she hears some of the things she went through whilst married to Chris, that Charity finds herself spilling more than she intended to.

She tells Vanessa about her affair with Zoe, and her affair with Cain. She goes into detail about how Chris tried to frame her for his murder and how Zoe, even though she knew Charity was innocent, went along with it too, to get revenge for her broken heart. She even reluctantly tells her she was willing to sell Noah for her own freedom. She tells her all about how broken Debbie has been since, The heart-breaking things she said to Charity outside the pub that night, and how she has been ever since.

 

Before she knows it, her tea has gone cold and over an hour has passed. Vanessa hasn’t moved from her spot once, only taking her eyes off Charity to look over at Johnny who has been an angel and happily played with his cars.   
“Wow, what a horrible family! Does Noah know Joe is his brother?”  
“Yeah. I told him yesterday. He took it better than I thought he would.” Charity sips her now cold tea. “He’s a good kid. I don’t want him anywhere near that man. He would ruin him. The Tates’ ruin everything they touch. I have just got to make sure he stays away.”  
Charity’s heart thumps in her chest as Vanessa gently squeezes her knee. Charity doesn't think anyone has ever touched her so gently before. “He has no right to come near him. As his mum there are measures you can take to make sure he stays away.”  
Charity pats Vanessa’s hand. “Oh, don’t you worry, I will be.”  
“And what Debbie said you outside the pub, I am sure she didn’t mean it.”  
“She has apologised, but the thing is she is right. I have turned her world upside down. She wouldn’t have gone through some of the crap she has been through if I wasn’t her mum.”  
Vanessa grabs Charity’s free hand in between both of hers and rubs her thumb over her knuckles. “Charity, you are not to blame for everything that had gone wrong for her. If you purposely did something, then yeah you could be blamed, but this, what he did, it is not your fault. Sounds like this Zoe planted some right rubbish in his head.”  
Charity laughs. “That she did. She was always a bit loopy. She often over exaggerated things and she was a bit of a drama queen.”  
“Takes one to know one,” Vanessa teases gently, making Charity laugh. “Did I hear right, that you and Debbie were arrested?”  
Charity nods and grimaces. “Yeah, charged with criminal damage.”  
“What did you do exactly?” Vanessa asks, sounding more curious than disappointed.   
“Trashed the place. Ripped furniture, curtains, pillows, dropped a few glasses and vases and I also….” She stops, deciding that telling Vanessa she did a number two on his living room floor might not be the best thing. It will probably send her running for the hills. It most definitely wasn’t her finest hour that’s for sure.   
“You did what?”  
“Nothing…”  
“Charity….” Vanessa draws out her name, her accent suddenly seems more pronounced and Charity realises it probably the voice she uses on Johnny when he is about to do something naughty.   
“Babe, I can’t tell you…”  
“Why?”  
“Because you will run a mile. It is gross.”  
Vanessa tilts her head and smiles softly. “Try me.”  
“I pooed on the carpet?” Charity mumbles.  
“You what?”  
“I pooed on the carpet,” Charity says, louder this time, even attracting Johnny’s attention.   
She looks down at the hand that Vanessa is holding. She sits and waits for Vanessa to pull her hands away before politely asking her to leave. She will, Charity thinks, Vanessa would never do something so disgusting, nor would she approve of someone doing something so disgusting. Hell, Vanessa probably did her business in a golden loo growing up.   
“You poo……You poo….”  
Charity hears Vanessa wheeze and she can hardly believe her eyes when she sees Vanessa’s shoulders shaking. She was laughing……Vanessa Woodfield, local vet, everyone’s favourite prim and proper ray of sunshine was laughing at Charity doing her business on Joe Tate’s living room floor.   
“You think it’s funny?”  
Vanessa wipes away the tears in her eyes. “Hilarious! I was not expecting you to say you had done that. Offensive graffiti, a smashed window—”  
“Oh, yeah we smashed a window.”  
“But not a poo on his floor.” She wipes away another tear and looks towards Johnny. “Mummy may be laughing, but you are not to copy Charity, do you understand?”  
Johnny nods and   
looks rather disgusted at the thought of doing a poo on the floor. Just like Charity had expected his mother to.   
“I really didn’t expect you to find this funny, babe.”  
Vanessa smirks. “Full of surprise me.”  
“Oh, babe, so far you have been the biggest surprise of my life.”

11/01/18- Hotten General Hospital

“She told me about it the next day at work. Took me ages to get it out of her because she couldn’t stop laughing,” Rhona says affectionately, thinking back on that day. “She thinks you’re the funniest person who has ever walked this planet.”  
Tracey nods in agreement. “So, did that change things for you, like how you felt about her? How she reacted, how she listened without judging you, how she didn’t want to just jump your bones but instead was happy to spend time with you?”  
Charity thinks back to that afternoon, after she left Vanessa’s house and headed back home. She remembers feeling lighter, because she had been with Vanessa. Her stomach ached from laughing with the other woman, and she honestly couldn’t remember a time when that had happened before. The main thing she remembers feeling was sadness. Sadness that she had to leave. Sadness that they couldn’t spend the rest of the evening together, just talking and laughing and hanging out with Johnny.   
“I think so yeah. I just don’t think I registered it at the time. Or, if I did, I locked it away because I had too many other things to be dealing with at the time. Adding a relationship into the mix wouldn’t have been ideal. Dragging her into all that wouldn’t have been good either. Even though I dragged her into a much worse situation later on.”  
Tracey smiles softly. “You didn’t drag her through anything. She would have walked through hell and back to help you through what you went through with Bails, Charity.”  
Charity looks at her girlfriend, her heart pounding with love as she thinks about how amazing Vanessa was throughout that whole ordeal. “I know.”  
“So, you were developing feelings for her, although not acknowledging them, and you enjoyed spending time with her outside of the bedroom, so what suddenly changed?”  
Charity frowns at Rhona. “What do you mean?”  
“Well, after the skills auction you started messing her around. You flirted with Daz, hell you even flirted with me! You seemed to be flirting with anyone that had a pulse.”  
Charity scowled at Rhona. “That was actually your fault. At the auction you called me her girlfriend. It freaked me out.”  
Rhona lets out a shocked laugh. “Oh, so it’s my fault you treated her like she didn’t matter to you.”  
Charity scowls. “Yes.”  
Rhona just shakes her head in disbelief.   
Tracey laughs though. “Never to blame for anything, are you?”  
Charity directs her scowl at Tracey who cowers slightly in her seat. “Nope, unless I am at fault.” Charity takes a deep breath and looks back at Vanessa. “I was comfortable with how things were, and I thought she was as well. When you called me her girlfriend I panicked and thought that maybe she had called me that or summut. It was childish and it was stupid.” Charity breaks out into a big grin. “But I won her affections back. It took me a few days, but I managed it.”  
“How on earth did you manage that?” Rhona asks. “I honestly thought she was done with you?”  
“Well, I can be very persuasive.”


	6. Six

“How on earth did you manage that?. I honestly thought she was done with you?”  
“Well, I can be very persuasive.”

 

31/01/18- Tug Ghyll

“Well, you certainly rocked my world just then,” Vanessa breathes out from where she is lying next to Charity.  
Charity laughs and looks over at Vanessa. She is breathless, naked, sweaty, and Charity doesn’t think she has ever seen anything more beautiful in her life.   
“Well, I promised I would, didn’t I.”  
Vanessa grunts. “That you did.”  
“Hey, your performance wasn’t too shabby either.”  
Vanessa gently slaps Charity’s naked stomach with the back of her hand. “Such a glowing compliment, Miss Dingle.”  
“I meant every word.” 

And she did. She had chased Vanessa tonight as a last attempt to get the woman back on side. She knew that way she had been behaving for the past few days was out of order. But she was Charity Dingle. Most of the time she acted first and thought second. She honestly thought that winding Vanessa up, pushing her buttons, would have Vanessa jumping the way she wanted her to.But no, Vanessa had to yet again surprise the hell out of her by acting indifferent. Vanessa’s “you can do what you like, I’m done with you” attitude, and the fact that she hadn’t come running back to Charity, begging her for another chance, surprised the hell out of her.

All her life she had manipulated people into doing what she wanted them to do. She made people chase her, never the other way around. The only time she had ever chased anyone was with Cain after she had come out of prison. And that was only because she was lonely and desperate.   
Vanessa however had refused to give chase. She refused to answer any of Charity’s calls or texts. She even blanked her walking past her in the village. Charity was used to people falling over themselves to get a piece of her. Not Vanessa though. Oh no. Last night Charity had laid in bed, holding herself back from marching over to Vanessa’s in the middle of the night and demanding she let her in. 

The thing that stopped her was the fact that she genuinely believed Vanessa would just leave her outside on the street, just to prove a point, like she had been doing all week. Approaching Vanessa in the morning, to see if she wanted a coffee, was a good way to test the waters she told herself. She was convinced Vanessa would be over her little strop and would happily join her in the café, all sunshine smiles and laughter. She didn’t, however, expect that Vanessa would claim to rather poo out a spikey animal than spend time with her.

She spent all day brooding. She told Chaz what Vanessa said, to which Chaz just howled and then told anyone else who would listen. She had sent a few messages to Vanessa, all of which were ignored, and she tried to call her, which again was ignored. So tonight, when she saw her walking past the pub, she knew she had to bite the bullet and give chase. She had to apologise, of sorts, and lay it out there. Lay out how she felt and what she wanted. She knew Vanessa appreciated it when she was honest and straight to the point, so that’s what she needed to do. And it worked. 

Vanessa kissing her out in the street was a shock and a turn on. Charity couldn’t deny the relief that swept through her when she realised that she hadn’t messed it up completely. Vanessa had all but dragged Charity off the street. They had both had an orgasm before they had even made it into the living room. Neither woman caring how loud they were. Anyone walking past would have heard them, and Charity really couldn’t have cared less.

Vanessa rolls onto her side so she’s facing Charity. She runs her index finger down between Charity’s breast and onto her stomach, smiling at the way Charity’s muscles clench and goose bumps appear on her skin. Her body reacts to Vanesa in a way it never has to anyone else before. It is not something she can hide, even if she wanted to.  
“Give me ten minutes and we can go again.”  
“Very romantic,” Charity mutters as she watches as Vanessa’s finger swirls around her belly button.   
“I thought you didn’t want romance,” Vanessa mocks gently. There is no malice in her voice. There never is with Vanessa. Charity doesn’t think she has a malicious bone in her body.   
“I don’t…..”  
Vanessa sighs and drops a kiss on Charity’s shoulder as she raises herself up onto her elbow, so she can see Charity better.   
“Then what do you want exactly? How is this going to play out? I know we are not in a relationship, nor will we be, but I don’t want to be made to look like a fool again, Charity.”  
Guilt hits Charity in the stomach. She honestly hadn’t been thinking about how her behaviour over the past few days had been affecting Vanessa. Which wasn’t a surprise if she was being honest. Thinking of other people’s feelings before her own was not something she was known to do. But to think she made her feel like a fool hurt more than she would admit to anyone. Ever.  
“I am sorry, Ness.”  
Vanessa gives her a sad smile. “I know. I know your offer of a cheeky coffee was, in your own wonderful way, a way of an apology. But—”  
“But?” Charity asks gently, trying not to smile at the fact that Vanessa had used the word wonderful to describe her.   
“Why did you behave like that? Did I suddenly start acting like I wanted a relationship with you? Because, well, the way you behaved doesn’t make such sense if I’m being honest.”  
Charity rolled onto her side so she was now facing Vanessa. “Well, Rhona freaked me out when she told you to ‘put your girlfriend down’. I thought we had both agreed it was just a bit of fun.”  
Vanessa rolled her eyes. “Rhona’s comment………So, Rhona calling you my girlfriend freaked you out.” Vanessa giggled. “Charity, I didn’t call you my girlfriend, Rhona did. Had I called you my girlfriend I might have understood, but Rhona—”  
“I thought you might have said something to her at work. Called me your girlfriend or summut. I don’t know what you ladies talk about, do I?”  
Vanessa grins. “Not you, that’s for sure.”  
Charity huffs. “Charming!”  
Vanessa laughs and runs her index finger down Charity’s arm. “Well, I may have bragged about some of the orgasms you have given me.”  
Charity’s eyes widen. “For real?”  
Vanessa pouts and entwins her fingers with Charity’s. “She asked once how good you are in bed, and I couldn’t lie.”  
Charity’s intrigued now. She knows women talk about their sex lives, she has done it many a times with Chaz, but for some reason she just couldn’t imagine Vanessa and Rhona talking about her, and her amazing talents, over a cup of tea. “What did you tell her?”  
Vanessa looks up towards her ceiling. “Um, how good you with your hands, you mouth, that thing you do with your tongue, the time we used that strap—”  
“The tongue thing? Which one?”  
Vanessa smirked. “All of them.”  
Charity grins her trademark smug grin. “Oh really. And what did…..Wait, what do you mean the way I behaved didn’t make any sense?” she asked, thinking back on what Vanessa had just said, before she was distracted with the sex talk.   
Vanessa sighs. “Flirting with everyone. It just makes no sense. You don’t want people to think we are together, but then you are flirting with people in front of me. It was like you were trying to get a rise out of me. I sat here last night thinking about it a lot actually. I couldn’t decide if you were doing it so if I flipped out about it you could say ‘we’re not a couple, babe, I can do what I want’”  
Charity frowns at Vanessa’s slightly deep voiced impression of her. “I do not talk like that.”  
“Or,” Vanessa carries on, “If you were doing it because you wanted me to freak out and say I wanted to be a couple. That was before I knew that Rhona’s comment freaked you out.”  
“Truth?”  
Vanessa nods. “It would be nice.”  
“I was doing it to show you that I can flirt with whoever I want because I don’t belong to you or anyone else…..”  
Vanessa nods slowly. “Makes sense, in a weird way. Just don’t do it again. Well, you can flirt with whoever the hell you like, just not in front of me. I know we are not a couple or anything, but watching you flirt with someone isn’t the biggest turn on to be honest.”  
Charity laughs. “Deal. Besides, you’re the only person I wanna be flirting with, babe.”  
Vanessa’s happy grin in contagious. “Great stuff.”  
“You can be flirting with people in front of me either,” Charity says sternly.  
Vanessa waves her hand in the air, waving away Charity’s comment. “I’m not too good at the flirting side of things.”  
Charity runs her finger down Vanessa’s nose. “Oh, I dunno, babe. It was pretty hot when you said you could think of another service to offer me at the skills auction.”  
Vanessa’s eyes darken. “Ah, yes, I did.”   
She leans down and brushes her lips softly against Charity’s. Charity smiles and deepens the kiss further. She pulls Vanessa on top of her and groans when she feels Vanessa’s arousal press against her thigh. She reaches down and grabs Vanessa’s bum, pulling the smaller woman’s body tight against her own. Vanessa breaks away from the kiss and starts planting hot, wet kisses along Charity’s neck. She reaches her earlobe and gently bites down, making Charity growl and buck her hips in response.   
Vanessa’s breath is hot against Charity’s ear as she whispers. “It’s a shame you didn’t pay up, Dingle.”  
Vanessa goes to move off Charity and Charity wraps her legs around Vanessa’s waist, stopping her in her tracks.   
“Oh, babe, there are many ways I can make up for that.”  
Charity rolls them over so now she is on top. She grins down at Vanessa who is smiling back at her. Charity palms Vanessa’s breasts, loving the low moan the woman underneath her lets out.   
“Let’s start with many of my tongue talents.”

11/01/19-Hotten General Hospital

“She didn’t go into too much detail….you know….about your…..tongue talents,” Rhona says with a blush, making Charity laugh.  
“I know. She did later tell me exactly what she said to you. I don’t mind her bragging,” Charity shrugged. “Who would.”  
“So, how did you go from not wanting to be in a relationship to wanting to be in a relationship with her in less than a month?” Tracey asks.   
“Well, I didn’t really know I wanted to be in a relationship with her and I didn't want her seeing anyone else until she went to the gay bar……”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! How amazing was last nights episode!


	7. Seven

“So, how did you go from not wanting to be in a relationship to wanting to be in a relationship with her in less than a month?”   
“Well, I didn’t really know I wanted to, not until she went to the gay bar……”

22/02/18- The Woolpack.

“I might get my mojo back too then,” Charity mimics as she walks back into the bar. “Go get it back then, see if I care.”  
She slams the green glass holder down, shaking a few of the glasses in the process. When she went outside to collect the glasses the last thing she expected to see was Vanessa, looking a million dollars, getting ready for a night on the town with that lot. She also didn’t expect Vanessa to blatantly rub in the fact that she is intending to ‘get her mojo back’ whatever the hell that meant. 

Charity huffs as she rounds the bar and grabs the dirty glasses from the holder. She all but throws them in the dishwasher before slamming the door shut. Mr Stein, a villager from Demdyke, raises his eyebrows as he watches Charity stomp around behind the bar.  
“You ok, blonde one?”  
Charity rolls her eyes at the nickname. He is eighty-two and can’t for the life of him remember her or Chaz’s name. He comes in every Thursday on his way back from visiting his daughter in Hotten. He doesn’t like the pub in his village, so he comes to the Woolpack instead. Charity likes him, he doesn’t moan, keeps himself to himself mostly, although he can also strike up quite an interesting conversation when he wants to.   
“I am fine thank you, Mr Stein. Just having one of those days.”  
He taps his finger on the side of his glass. “Wanna tell this old fool all about it?”  
Charity laughs. “Nope, you are alright thanks.” She nods at his near empty glass. “Want another?”  
“Please.” He hands her the glass and watches as she gets him another pint. “Where is your little friend?”  
“What friend?”  
“She is blonde, pretty, small, has a nice little laugh. She is always looking at you with love heart eyes, as my granddaughter would say.”  
Charity scoffs as she passes him his drink. “Love heart eyes?”  
He shrugs and takes a sip of his drink. “My granddaughter says it means you really fancy someone and you want to be with them forever. She is five though, so I wouldn’t take her word for it.” He narrows his eyes at Charity. “You look at her in the same way.”  
“I. DO. NOT,” Charity protests rather loudly, gaining the attention of the other punters.  
Mr Stein grins. “You do, blonde one. Took me ten minutes to get your attention a couple of weeks back because you were all smiley with her over the bar.”  
“Wasn’t.”  
“You were.”  
“I wasn’t.”  
“You were.”  
“I—” Charity is interrupted as the pub door swings open and Lisa runs in looking rather frantic.   
“We need help, Charity.”  
Charity runs out from behind the bar with all sorts of disastrous things running through her mind. Is Belle hurt? Sammy? One of the kids? Uncle Zac? She follows Lisa out of the pub and holds back a groan when she sees Paddy slumped against one of the benches.   
“Please don’t tell me he is drunk?”  
Lisa laughs. “Drunk? No love. He came over to see us, see how we are getting on with the build and he hurt his back.” Lisa leans in closer to Charity. “Picking up a mug of tea.”  
Charity barks out a laugh. “Typical Padster. Right, what do you want me to do?”  
They gently help Paddy back into the pub, placing him down in a chair as slowly and as gently as they can. Charity watches in amusement as Chaz starts off by giving Paddy sympathy, to laughing at his plight. She then gets pretty pissed off when he calls her old. Big mistake, Paddy, Charity thinks as she pour Zac his drink.   
“You ok, love? Lisa asks. “You look a bit tense?”  
“Been throwing things about she has,” Mr Stein says from his seat at the opposite end of the bar. “Got a strop on over something.”  
Zac grunts out a laugh. “When hasn’t she?”  
Charity glares at him. “Do you want to be wearing your drink?”   
Lisa laughs. “Charity behave. Come on, love, let’s go and sit with the wounded warrior.”

 

The next hour passes in a blur of taking the mick out of Paddy and serving. Belle and Lachlan come in, and they themselves laugh at poor Paddy and his injury. Lisa telling anyone who will listen he got his back injury from picking up a mug.   
Then comes the first photo of the night from Vanessa. A group photo she shrugs off, telling Chaz ‘it’s no skin off my nose’. Chaz of course sees right through it. She has been watching Charity throw her weight around behind the bar all evening. It isn’t uncommon for Charity to be throwing a strop, but for Chaz to not know the reason why is uncommon. Charity loves having a rant, especially when she feels like she has been hard done by. 

Charity walks Mr Stein out to his taxi, as she always does, and waves him off with a big smile. She turns on her heel and heads for one of the benches. She climbs and sits on top of it and think about what the wise old man had said. He was half right, she thinks as she looks up at the stars. Vanessa is the reason she is in a strop. Not just because Thursday is the night that Frank always has Johnny for a sleepover, so Vanessa always comes and stays at the pub, and she has ditched that for a night out on the town with Robert, Bernice, Kerry and Priya. But also because of the way she almost seemed to gloat about the fact she might try and pull.

Charity knows they’re not a couple, she knows that. They spoke about where they stood after she damn well chased the infuriating woman down the street. They also spoke about not flirting with other people in front of each other. Charity had stood by that, in fact she hadn’t flirted with anyone. When Vanessa is in the pub Charity struggles to take her eyes off her, let alone focus on anyone. Vanessa is the same. She often gets guys trying to chat her up, and Charity can’t blame them, Vanessa is simply stunning, but she always politely tells them she isn’t interested before turning her attention back to Charity. So if flirting with other people is off the table, then surely boasting about pulling someone else should be off the table, too?

Charity wraps her arms around herself as a gust of wind sweeps through the village. She thinks about what Vanessa could be doing right now. Is she dancing with someone else? Is she laughing at someone else’s jokes? Is she…..Charity swallows hard….She can’t even think about Vanessa kissing someone else. The though it….it makes her feel sick. Why? Why was she feeling this way? She would be furious if the roles were reversed and Vanessa was throwing a strop because she had gone out on the pull. She was free to do what she liked with whoever she liked. So why wasn’t she giving Vanessa the same grace?

She rubs her hands over the face and groans in frustration. Nothing is making sense. The way she feels isn’t making sense. She doesn’t want another relationship. Not again. Not after Cain, yet again, ripped her heart out of her chest and went back to his life as a farmers husband. She’d had her heart broken way too many times. Not just in her love life. People had been letting her down all her life. Her parents. Her family. Her friends. Everyone. No one stuck around. They all got bored of her and she couldn’t put her heart through that happening again. It wouldn’t survive it. She wouldn’t survive it. She is strong, and she is tough on her own. She doesn't need love. She doesn’t need a relationship. Her head is telling her she doesn’t need another relationship, the rest of her however…..

Just the thought of Vanessa’s smile makes her want to smile herself. The thought of Vanessa’s laugh makes her heart skip a beat. The thought of Vanessa’s kisses and her touch makes her body throb with desire. The thought of Vanessa in the arms of someone else makes her own arms ache to hold her, to keep her from anyone else.  
Vanessa wouldn’t pull anyone else, would she? She’s not like that. She seems happy with what they had going on? Why would she go looking elsewhere?

She hears Chaz walk out of the pub before she hears her speak. “Enough slacking, get back in here.”  
So she does, dragging her feet and letting out numerous sighs.   
“Oh, get a grip, Charity,” Chaz scolds. “She will come running back to you, so don’t worry.”  
Charity tries to smile but fails. Aside from that picture she hadn’t heard from Vanessa since. She was either having a good time or…..Nope, she wasn’t going there. Vanessa wouldn’t do that. She walks behind the bar and starts to serve the waiting punters as Chaz makes herself a cup of tea.   
Her phone suddenly pings, and her heart skips a beat. Chaz gets to it before she does, winding her up about the picture Vanessa sends her. Charity snatches her phone, her stomach dropping when she sees the woman in the selfie Vanessa has sent her. She is pretty. Really pretty. Vanessa would have no problem getting that woman to go home with her. 

That thought alone has her making up her mind. If Vanessa goes home with anyone tonight, it will be her. She tries to get out of her shift, Chaz of course saying no, blaming her for the turn of events because she played it cool with Vanessa. She taps at the bar. She is going to leave, she never listens to Chaz, but she needs to find a way of doing it in a way that won't piss Chaz off too much. She has a lightbulb moment as she looks over at Belle and Lachlan. She promises them the use of the pubs kitchen, knowing they won’t be able to, but she doesn’t care about her little white lie. She cares about Vanessa and her ending up in her arms tonight, and not anyone else’s.  
As she sneaks out of the back of the pub fifteen minutes later, and into the waiting taxi she has only one thought going through her mind. “God, I hope this doesn’t backfire on me”

 

Four hours later

It didn’t backfire. My god it did anything but backfire. Vanessa was dancing like a loon when Charity got to the club. When she turned and saw Charity she was ecstatic. The kiss she gave Charity at the table was anything but gentle. It was rough, passionate, electric, and said to anyone looking ‘this woman is mine’.  
They moved away from the rest of the group and spent half an hour sat at their own table, dancing in their chairs, laughing at the other terrible dancers and snogging each other faces off as much as they could. They drank quite a bit in that half an hour. The buzz of the alcohol was just starting to hit Charity when they were kicked out. The ride back in the taxi consisted of them making out in the back seat and everyone else making gagging noises. Charity didn’t care. She was just so relieved that she was the one taking Vanessa home. 

Chaz, as expected was annoyed, but that didn’t faze Charity. The one thing on her mind was the beautiful blonde sat with her at the bar. The beautiful blonde who all but abandoned the people she went out with to spend her time with Charity. The beautiful blonde who was kissing her whenever she could and who was looking at her like she hung the moon. Charity knew she had to be honest when Vanessa asked her why she had come to the bar. The little hum Vanessa gave after Charity answered with ‘because you invited me you drunkard’ was Vanessa’s trademark ‘I don’t believe you but I’m not going to push you’ hum. She never pushed. She never asks Charity for more than she can give of herself. She never wants anything more than what Charity is willing to give her. Vanessa is the first person in the world that just wants Charity for who she is. Vanessa is different.  
Which is why Charity wants to be with Vanessa. She wants strings. She wants exclusivity. She wants it all. Because Vanessa is different their relationship will be different. She would bet her life on it. Vanessa will never, ever hurt her. 

Charity sighs happily as she looks down at the woman lying naked in her arms. If she knew that agreeing to ‘strings’ would have led to the sex they just had she would have done it months ago. Sex with Vanessa is always amazing. Mind blowing even. But tonight, it had just been more. The way Vanessa looked at her, touched and kissed her, had her voice had cracked as she cried out Charity’s name, it all just felt more meaningful than it had ever before. It was like a switch had been flipped inside of Vanessa and suddenly she felt comfortable showing Charity just how she really felt about her.   
Charity was the same. As she kissed and touched Vanessa tonight she had tried to pour all of her feelings into those kisses and touches. From the tears that had filled Vanessa’s eyes she had succeeded.   
Charity kisses Vanessa’s forehead and pulls her in closer. She feels Vanessa shift in her arms before the smaller woman places a gentle kiss on her chest, just above her heart.   
“Goodnight…..Girlfriend.”  
Charity smiles wider than she has in a long time. “Goodnight, girlfriend.”

11/01/19- Hotten General Hospital. 

“Awwww,” Tracey says. “That is so cute!”  
“You know she purposely made you jealous, right?” Rhona asks.  
“Course I do,” Charity lifts Vanessa’s hand and kisses the back of it again. “She’s a little madam.”  
Tears fill her eyes as she looks at her beautiful girlfriend. “My strong, hot-headed, beautiful, amazing, kind, brave little madam.”  
Tracey sniffs and wipes away a tear. “She is strong. She will be fine. She won’t leave us. She won’t leave Johnny, or you, Moses and Noah. She just wouldn’t.”  
Charity relaxes hearing that. The doctors have told them that whilst she is critical at the moment she will be ok. Hearing her sister say she won’t leave because she loves them though makes Charity feel even better. Love is the strongest emotion of them all. If love can’t pull her little woman through this then nothing can.   
“Do you want to hear more?” Charity asks, surprising the other women.   
“You sure?” Tracey asks.  
“Yeah. I’m enjoying telling you guys all this. It is nice to think back on the happy times. It’s….helping.”  
Tracey rubs her hands together. “Ok…..So, after you became official you were attached at the hip. I noticed it wasn’t long before Moses was coming around to the house with you, when he never had before. Johnny and Moses love the bones off each other, and Noah, but when did the two little boys first meet? Vanessa said it was messy, but nothing else. What happened?”  
Charity laughs, thinking back on that day. “Well, it was messy, but it wasn’t the boys who got dirty.”


	8. Eight

When did the two little boys first meet? Vanessa said it was messy, but nothing else. What happened?”  
“Well, it was messy, but it wasn’t the boys who got dirty.”

24/02/18- The Woolpack. 

‘Put some wellies on you and Moses.’  
Charity frowns as she looks at Vanessa’s text message. ‘What for?’ she sends back.  
‘You’ll see? :)’  
Charity sighs and throws her phone on to the table. “Moses, where are your wellies?”  
Her little boy looks up at her from the floor where he is playing with his cars. “I not know.”  
Charity laughs, it was more of a rhetorical question. Moses could be wearing his wellies and he would still claim to not know where they were. He was a bit doppy, which Charity swore he got from his father, but she loves him for it. She walks out into the hallway and rummages around in the shoe cupboard under the stairs.  
“You ok?” Chaz asks as she walks down the stairs.  
“Just looking for mine and Moses, wellies.”  
Chaz scrunches up her nose. “Why?”  
Charity punches the air as she spots them. “I have no idea. Ness just text me and told me to get our wellies.”  
Chaz crosses her arms across her chest. “Are you going somewhere then?”  
Charity gives her cousin a sheepish grin. “Oh, yeah….Babe, Vanessa and I would like to take the boys out for the day….so can you do my shift?”  
Chaz rolls her eyes. “As long as you cover me tomorrow.”  
Charity stomps her foot. “It’s a Sunday.”  
Chaz grins and replies in a sing song voice. “I know. So, where are you going?”  
Charity takes the wellies into the living room and beckons Moses over. He climbs onto her lap and sits there quietly whilst she puts his wellies on, relieved that they still fit him.   
“I have no idea. Vanessa suggested yesterday that we spend the day together with the boys. She said we should take them out somewhere. I thought she meant like a soft play, but apparently we are going somewhere that involves mud.”  
Charity frowns at that. She hopes it isn’t a farm. She hates farms. The smell. The animals. Everything.   
Chaz ruffles Moses’s hair and grins down at the little boy. “Well, whatever you do, I hope you have a great day. And don’t tire yourself out too much. You have a long shift ahead of you tomorrow.”  
Charity grabs the pillow next to her and throws it at her cousin, smiling when she hears Chaz laugh.   
“Right, little man, shall we go and see Johnny and Vanessa?”  
Moses nods and grabs his elephant. “Yeah! Let go!”

 

Charity grips Moses’s hand as they slowly make their way towards Vanessa's house. He has been really excited about their trip out with Vanessa and Johnny, even though he doesn’t really know them. He has met Vanessa once on one of the many times she stayed overnight. He woke up with a bad tummy and walked into Charity’s room, not fazed at all by the other woman in her bed. Vanessa was great with him, Charity thought with a smile as she thought back on that night. She told him a funny story that soon had him laughing rather than crying. He does go to nursery with Johnny, but they are in different rooms, and Moses claims that he has never seen Johnny there. Ever. When she asked him he actually said there isn't a kid called Johnny at his nursery. He even started to throw a strop over it. He always has to be right. She has no idea where he gets that from. 

Moses points down the street and waves as Aaron leaves the shop and starts walking towards the pub. Charity smiles at Aaron but her smile soon disappears when she sees his smirk.  
“What?”  
Aaron tries to keep his face straight, but fails miserably. “Nothing.”  
Charity glares at him. “What is so funny?”  
Aaron points down at her pink wellies. “I just didn’t take you as a wellie kind of woman, Charity.”  
She huffs. “I’m a Dingle, Aaron, we love a wellie.”  
He laughs. “To drink out of, yeah.”  
“We live in the countryside, Aaron. It would be bizarre if I didn’t own a pair. I can’t remember the last time I wore them though.”  
He laughs. “Where are you off to?”  
Charity smiles. “Moses and I are off out with Vanessa and Johnny.”  
He grins. “Everything going ok with you two then? You haven’t managed to screw it up yet?”  
Charity rolls her eyes. Everyone always expects her to be the one who messes up. Yes, her track record isn’t great, but she hasn’t always been the one in the wrong. Everyone seems to forget that Cain and Jai both cheated on her. Yeah she may have cheated on Jai, but he did it first and then emotionally neglected her trying to hide his sordid secret, so the fact that she slept with Declan doesn’t count. In her eyes anyways.   
“We have been official for two days, Aaron. Even I can’t mess it up in that time. You and Robert good?”  
Aaron gives a big smile. “Yeah we are great. Making up for lost time.”  
Charity gags. “Just lock the bathroom door this time yeah.”  
He laughs and blushes. “Will do. See you later.”

She gives him a smile and Moses waves. They carry on walking slowly towards Vanessa’s house. Moses is babbling away about everything he can think of and Charity just nods along and answers where she thinks appropriate. They are about to walk up Vanessa’s path when her door swings open.  
Vanessa is wearing her trademark yellow puffy coat, her hair is tied up, she is wearing dark skinny jeans and yellow wellies. She looks so beautiful and it warms Charity’s heart to know she is hers. She gives Charity a beaming smile. A smile Charity is now starting to realise only gets directed at her. She has never seen her smile at Rhona or Tracey like that.   
“Hello, Dingles,” Vanessa says with a laugh.  
“Good morning, Woodfields,” Charity replies.  
She waits at the bottom of the path as Vanessa locks up and slowly walks Johnny down the path. She meets Charity at the end of her garden and leans up onto her tip toes to give her a kiss. Charity takes the opportunity to wrap her free arm around Vanessa’s waist, pulling her in closer as she sweeps her tongue along Vanessa’s bottom lip.  
“Behave, the kids are present,” Vanessa tries to scold Charity but her happy smile shows she isn’t really bothered about kissing in front of the kids.  
“They’ve got to get used to it, babe. You are way too kissable.”  
Vanessa rolls her eyes at the cheesy line. “Are you ready for our day of fun?”  
Charity raises one eyebrow. “What does this day of fun include exactly?”  
Vanessa just grins. “You will have to wait and see.”

Charity sits down next to Vanessa as she watches Johnny and Moses run around the outdoor playground. She smiles as she watches them squeal and play together, thankfully they are getting on like a house on fire. Well, except for the one argument in the car. Johnny said he played cars with Moses at nursery once and Moses denied it, again claiming to have never seen Johnny before in his life. Johnny argued back for all he was worth, surprising the hell out of Charity. The kid may be quiet, but he is a feisty little surprise. Just like his Mummy. 

Vanessa’s little surprise day out was a trip to a country park over an hour away. Charity wasn’t one for country parks and outdoor play areas. She did take Noah to them when he was a kid, but he preferred her kicking a ball around with him. He didn’t really like climbing frames, whereas Moses would climb the drain pipe at the pub if she let him.  
They had been and fed the ducks before coming to the playground part of the park and eating a little picnic Vanessa had put together for them. Charity hadn’t even noticed the small cooler bag in her hand until they got into the car. Vanessa’s smile and beauty and the need to kiss her distracting her as always. The picnic had only consisted of a few sandwiches and some fruit, but the boys were happy, and Charity had enjoyed eating together and listening to the boys babble.

“We should do something that Noah would want to come to next time…” Vanessa suggest gently, unsure of how the teenager felt about the new relationship in his mothers life.   
“I did ask if he wanted to come today, but he said he would rather go round to see Samson. I am not going to push him, Ness. He has been through a lot and had a lot of people walk in and out of his life. It might take him some time to come around, but he will eventually.”  
“That’s fair enough. I’m not trying to force you into bringing him out with us.”  
Charity kisses Vanessa’s nose. “I know you’re not, babe.”  
Noah knows Vanessa. He spent Christmas day with her a few years ago when Charity was in prison, but he isn't interested in Charity’s new relationship at all right now. Charity is sure he will come around to the idea. He is just protecting himself from more hurt.   
“He hasn’t got a problem with the fact you are in a relationship with a woman, has he?”  
“Nah, I dated a woman when he was about three, for a month, and weirdly he remembers that. And, I have told him about what happened with me and his Aunt Zoe, so he knows I am bisexual.”  
Vanessa lets out a deep breath and Charity realises that Vanessa has probably been really worried about Noah not liking them being together because Vanessa is a woman.   
“He’s a cool kid, and kids nowadays don’t care about that kind of stuff.”  
“True. They are far more open-minded than our generation was.”

They sit and chat about everything and anything for another half an hour before deciding to call it a day. The boys are starting to get tired and it looks like it might start raining at any minute. They get the boys and start heading back towards the car. Whenever Charity takes Moses somewhere like a soft play centre he kicks off when they leave. Today however, as Vanessa gently but firmly tells them they have to go home, he starts making his way back to the car without a fuss. Looks like Charity isn’t the only one wrapped around Vanessa’s little finger. 

Charity grabs Vanessa’s hand and laces her fingers with the smaller woman’s. Vanessa smiles at her and then turns her attention back to the boys. Just as they are about to leave the play area Johnny squeals and points up at a small tree located just by the main gate to the park.   
“Mummy, look, it is Marshall!”  
“Oh yes, baby. I can see.”  
Charity squints as she tries to work out what Johnny is pointing at.   
“Can we have him?”  
“No, darling.”  
It is then that Charity sees it, a Marshall balloon. Marshall from that bloody paw patrol programme Moses has recently got into.   
“Please, Mummy, we have be good.”  
Charity smiles as Johnny gives his mother his best puppy dog eyes. He looks so much like Vanessa that it sometimes takes Charity’s breath away.   
Vanessa sighs. “I know you have. You both have, but we can’t get it. It is too high up in the tree.”  
Moses joins in on the pouting, stomping his right foot at the same time, and Charity rolls her eyes. It is only a sodding balloon, but from the way the kids are acting you would think the thing was made from gold and full of sweets.   
“Boys, we can’t reach it.”  
Johnny’s bottom lip trembles and Charity’s heart breaks for the kid. To be that young, that innocent, that the worst thing that can happed to you is not being able to get a balloon that’s stuck in a tree. He is still a little unsure of Charity. He laughs at her when she makes silly faces, but he is yet to start a conversation with her. He normally just nods or shakes his head in response to her questions. An idea suddenly strikes her. It could be the thing that breaks the ice, that makes him more open to her, she thinks as she looks back up at the tree.   
“It isn’t that high, babe. I could give you a boost.”  
Vanessa’s shocked face says it all. Yeah, it is a stupid idea that could possibly result in a broken bone or two if it goes horrifically wrong, but Charity is willing to risk it to impress Vanessa’s little boy. She knows this relationship is new, brand new, and no one can say how long it will last, but Charity wants to give this her all. And a part of that is building a relationship with the most important person in Vanessa’s life. He will think she is a hero, which will get them off to a pretty good start in her eyes.   
“A boost?”  
Charity cups her hands together. “You know, you climb into my—”  
“Yes, Charity, I know what a boost is. What…..what if I fall?”  
“I won’t let you. I’ve got fast reactions.”  
“What if you drop me?”  
“I won’t. I’m strong.” Charity bends her arms and clenched her muscles. Moses laughs and copies her.   
“I’m heavy though!” Vanessa protests.   
Charity leans forward and gently tucks Vanessa’s hair behind her ear. She kisses her cheek and whispers, “I have never heard you complain about how heavy you are when I have you up against the wall. Or when you’re sat on top of me.”  
Vanessa blushes and stutters. “That is different.”  
Charity laughs and shakes her head. “It isn’t babe.” She grasps Vanessa’s shoulders and pushes her towards the tree. She bends her knees and clasps her hands together again. “Come on, little legs, up you go.”  
Vanessa scowls at the nickname as she drops the cooler and her handbag onto the ground in front on the tree. She places her hands on Charity’s shoulders.   
“Promise you have fast reactions and you really are super strong.”  
“Cross my heart, babe.”   
Charity looks over at the boys who are practically shaking with excitement. “Are you boys ready to see something magic?”  
“Yeah!” they both shout.   
Vanessa takes a deep breath and her grip tightens on Charity’s shoulders. “Is this the best time to tell you I am also scared of heights?”  
“I’m not surprised, babe. Anything over five-foot must be high to you.”  
Vanessa glares at her girlfriend for yet another joke aimed at her height.   
“Just jump up and grab it, Vanessa. Easy.”  
Vanessa mumbles her breath before placing her right, mud covered wellie into Charity’s hands. She then bounces on her left foot before using her grip on Charity’s shoulder to push her upwards. Charity wobbles and Vanessa gasps, but she keeps going upwards, determined to get the balloon for the boys.   
Vanessa reaches upwards and grabs the balloon. “I got it!”  
“Yes, babe!” Charity shouts, her arms starting to ache with the exertion of holding Vanessa in this position.   
Vanessa in her excitement, forgets she is balancing on one foot in Charity’s hands, turns to see the boys, to show them the balloon, but she spins too fast, and Charity’s reactions aren’t as fast as she said they were.   
Vanessa topples backwards and Charity tries her hardest to catch her. Charity all bust dives to catch Vanessa as she falls through the air. She catches Vanessa’s fall but isn’t stable enough to hold them both upright. Charity stumbles forward, her eyes widening as she catches sight of a muddy puddle right in front of them, a muddy puddle they are heading right for.   
They go down with a thud. Charity twists her body round in the last second so she takes the brunt of the fall. She lands on her back with Vanessa on top of her. The wind is knocked out of her but that isn’t her main concern. The mud sticking to her hair and clothes is.   
“Charity, are you alright?” Vanessa asks, running her hands over Charity’s face. “Darling, are you hurt?”  
Charity shakes her head, coating more of her hair in mud. “I am fine, babe. Just a bit winded. Why the hell did you spin around?”  
Vanessa’s mouth drops open in shock. “You are blaming me!”  
Charity pretends to look around them. “I didn’t see anyone else trying to swivel in my hands, did you?”  
Before Vanessa can reply Johnny slowly walks over to Vanessa and takes the string holding the balloon from her hands. They both watch in silence as he walks away, not caring about the two women who have risked life and limb for that bloody balloon. Moses claps in excitement and goes to grab the balloon. Johnny pulls it away and, in the process, manages to get it caught up in a bush.  
“No, Johnny, don’t pull—”  
BANG  
Vanessa looks from Johnny to Charity and then back again before bursting out into laughter.   
“As if he’s just...” Charity urges a still laughing Vanessa off her.   
She climbs up out of the muddy puddle and looks at Johnny, who is now holding a popped Marshall balloon in his hands. Vanessa is still laughing as she takes in the scene in front of her. Charity wants to be mad, she really does. She is covered in mud, her arms ache and the kid has just popped the balloon he was going mad for, but Vanessa’s sweet laughter and the look on the boys faces soon as her laughing too. As she grabs the popped balloon and promises the boys another, she can’t help but think this is the best day she has ever had at the park. 

11/01/19- Hotten General Hospital 

Tracey wipes the tears away from her eyes. “That is brilliant! Did you buy them another balloon?”  
“Yeah, they popped that one as well within five minutes.” Charity looks at Vanessa. “Ness laughed her head off the second time, too. She thought it was hilarious.”  
She aches with the need to hear Vanessa’s laughter again. She truly thinks it is the most beautiful sound she has ever heard. She would give anything right now for Vanessa to open her eyes, smile and laugh. To tell her everything is going to be ok.  
“She laughs all the time with you, Charity,” Rhona says. “I have never seen her laugh like she does with you. Especially on the night she got suspended.”  
Charity laughs. “God she got the giggles that night. Then she cried, and then she laughed again.”  
Tracey frowns. “Where was I?”  
Charity looks away from her girlfriend. “You went to your friends house in Leeds, remember?”  
Tracey nods. ”Oh yeah. So, what happened exactly?”  
“Well, your sister got very drunk and decided that we should have some fun…..”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your lovely comments.


	9. Nine

“So, what happened exactly?”  
“Well, your sister got very drunk and to be honest she was a bit of a nightmare, but we did have a bit of fun……”

30/03/18- The Woolpack.

Charity cringes as her girlfriend downs yet another glass of wine. She is determined to get blind drunk and no one was going to stop her.   
“Babe, how about a coffee, and some food?”  
Vanessa glares at her as she reaches for her bottle of wine. “Like I said the last twenty times you asked, I don’t want a coffee and I don’t want any food. I am going to get drunk and stay drunk for the next twelve months.”

Charity rolls her eyes and holds back a groan. Vanessa has been in ‘pity me’ mode for the past four hours and Charity has no idea how to help her. Charity is the expert when it comes to pitying herself. Like Vanessa she normally turns to drink and gets a bit mouthy. However, when it is someone else going through it, she has no idea how to help them. Especially not her normally happy girlfriend. 

She can’t help but feel some responsibility for the situation Vanessa is in. If she hadn’t persuaded her to come into the back room of the pub for a quick bunk up, then Gabby and Liv wouldn’t have had the chance to steal the ketamine. If she hadn’t followed her girlfriend back to vets afterwards and wound her up before taking her against the desk, then Vanessa might have noticed the drugs were missing. 

She knows the power she holds over Vanessa and she relishes in it. She knows one look, one cocky smile, and one naughty suggestion or touch will have the other woman dropping whatever she is supposed to be doing to run straight into her arms. She knew that Vanessa wouldn’t say no to a quickie in the back room even though she had another horny cow to go and look at. 

Charity loves how much Vanessa wants her, because she wants Vanessa just as much. She doesn’t do it to play games, she does it because she wants to be with Vanessa as much as Vanessa wants to be with her. Charity has never been so intensely attracted to anyone before in her life. She herself has dropped things to rush over to Vanessa’s for some consensual adult time. She’s left Noah’s parents evening early, changed her nights with Moses so she can go around to Vanessa’s, she has cancelled her shifts and bunked out of work early. She even cancelled a shopping day with Debbie because Vanessa called to say Johnny was in nursery, she had the day off, and the house was empty. 

Rhona wasn’t best pleased with Charity. Of course she blamed her for it all. She blamed her for distracting Vanessa and then not taking the situation seriously. Charity had ripped apart the back room trying to find the ketamine. She walked all over the village, retracing Vanessa’s footsteps, trying desperately to find her girlfriends lost drugs. Rhona didn’t care about all that though. Charity would also be the troublesome one in her eyes. 

“So, um, what will your new temporary role be then?” Charity asks, emphasising the word temporary.   
Charity has never liked any of her jobs enough to care if she got sacked or not. Even when she worked with Jai at the factory in a job she was good at, she didn’t miss it. She missed the money she made but not the job. Whereas Vanessa loves her job. She loves every single thing about it. Charity knows that it is going to be so hard for her girlfriend to not be able to help all the animals that come into the vets over the next year.  
“Office manager,” Vanessa scoffs. “I have no idea what I will be doing that Pearl doesn’t already do. We are going to argue like cat and dog.”  
“No pun intended,” Charity replies with a grin, getting a small one in response.   
Vanessa sighs and takes a small sip of her drink. “I have no idea in all honesty. I will have to talk to Rhona and Paddy about it all. Where did Rhona go?”  
Charity shrugs. “No idea.”   
She thought Rhona would stick around and help her best friend through this, but she disappeared not long after they got to the pub. Paddy was still hanging around. He was sitting at the bar, looking over at them with a guilty expression and he was constantly apologising for his part in it all. Insulting Martin’s wife hadn’t been Paddy’s finest moment to say the least.  
“Hey, I was thinking, what if we told them that Martin was about to give you a glowing recommendation, but he changed his mind because of Paddy? I mean, that is unprofessional. He took Paddy’s insult to heart and then took it out on you.”  
Vanessa slowly runs her finger around the rim of her glass. “It won’t work. It might have done had I thought about that during the meeting. If I go back and say that now though they will think I am just trying to get out of it. I deserve this suspension. I am not angry at Paddy for what he did….Well, I am a bit….It was my fault, Charity.”  
“Babe, I have to take some of the blame.”  
Vanessa shakes her head. “No, you don’t. Those drugs are my responsibility. I knew they were in the bag. I should have checked the bag after Gabby and Liv had ran out of the room. I should have checked my bag properly back at the vets. It is all on me.”

 

Two hours and another bottle of wine later, and Vanessa’s mood has done a complete one-eighty. Before she was all glum and depressed and now she is giggling and telling everyone who is listening all the bad jokes she knows.   
“And then he says, ‘well he should have quit whilst he was a head’”  
Charity watches in bemusement as Jimmy and Rishi howl with laughter at Vanessa’s joke. Vanessa has a great sense of humour, she makes Charity laugh all the time, but her jokes have got to be some of the worst Charity has ever heard. Charity doesn’t think they would even make it into the ‘worlds worst jokes’ book.   
“Is she high or something?” Cain asks grumpily from his seat by the bar.   
Chas laughs. “No. She is in drunk mood-swing mode. She will start crying again in a minute.”  
Charity feels a rush of panic go through her. She has just spent the best part of four hours trying to cheer Vanessa up and she thought she had succeeded.   
“How do you know that?”  
“Because it is classic depression drinking. You start of sad, then you get happy, then sad, then happy, then sad until you pass out. You do it all the time.”  
“Do I?”  
Cain nods. “All the time.”  
Charity leans forward and watches her girlfriend across the bar. “I can’t hack her crying again, Chas. It is killing me.”  
Chas smiles softly. She is loving this new soft side to Charity.   
“Then give her a reason not cry again. Go and have some fun. Watch a comedy film, go into town, anything to keep her mind of why she is drinking. Also, you need to get her out of here because I am not serving her anymore.”  
Charity wasn’t planning on letting Vanessa have anymore either. She was only tiny. Another few glasses and she would be on the floor.   
“I can’t take her into town, not in this state, we won’t get in anywhere. A film, well…..she will find something to cry about…….What can I do?”  
“Why don’t you ask her what she wants to do?” Cain suggests, surprising the hell out of Chas and Charity. “She clearly wants to take her mind off it. Letting her chose her form of distraction, instead of drinking herself into oblivion, might help.”  
“Ok, who are you and what have you done with my brother?” Chas teases as Charity takes in what he has just said.   
“Yeah, that is a good idea. Thanks, Cain.”  
Charity walks over to Vanessa and places her hands on her shoulders, halting another bad joke in its tracks. Vanessa tips her head back and gives Charity a lopsided smile.  
“Hey, beautiful girlfriend of mine.”  
Charity smiles. “Hey, drunkard.” She moves so she is stood in front of Vanessa. She crouches down and takes her girlfriends hands, giving them a gentle squeeze. “Babe, how about we head out of here. Let’s go and do something fun.”  
Vanessa’s eyes darken. “Ooooooo, something fun like fun naked time.”  
Jimmy chokes on his drink and Rishi gives them a saucy smile.  
“No, babe.”  
Vanessa pouts and Charity kisses it right of her lips.   
“Well, what then?”  
“You decide?”  
Vanessa decides she needs to finish her glass of wine in one gulp, thank Jimmy and Rishi for their company, repeatedly, and then buy half a dozen packets of pork scratchings before they can leave the pub. She stumbles out of the pub and Charity reaches forward to catch her.   
“So, what do you fancy doing?”  
Vanessa shrugs on her coat. “Dunno. Even when I am drinking and telling jokes I still..... by the way Jimmy and Rishi think my jokes are hilarious. Unlike you.”  
“I could see that, babe.”  
“Anyway, even when I am doing that all I can think about is how useless I am going to feel over the next year, and how lost I am going to be.”  
Charity can see Vanessa is heading towards the crying part of her drunk depression again. She pulls the smaller woman towards her and kisses her forehead gently.  
“What is your favourite thing to do?”  
Vanessa leans back so she can Charity and raises her eyebrows. Charity laughs and kisses Vanessa quickly.   
“Not that. Something else.”  
“When I was a kid, and I was sad because my Dad failed to pick me up again, I would go out with my friends and……” She giggles. “Well, we can't do that.”  
“Do what?”  
“Play knock door run.”  
Charity feels the laughter bubble up inside her. “Knock door run?”  
"Yes," Vanessa slurs, swaying slightly on her feet.  
"And why can't we do that?"  
“Because we are forty-two year old women, Charity. And I am so drunk I can barely walk let alone run.”  
“Well, how about you hide and I do the knocking and the running?”  
“Hey, what you two doing?”  
Charity looks over Vanessa’s shoulder and sees Rhona walking towards them.   
“We are debating whether or not we are too old to play knock door run,” Charity answers.  
She can see that Rhona is unsure whether Charity is joking or not. “Well, considering how old you both are, and the fact that you have to hold her up, I don’t think it is a good idea.”  
Vanesa glares at her friend. “It will make me happy. I am going to hide, and Charity is going to knock.”  
Rhona shakes her head. “You’re not actually being serious, are you?”  
“Vanessa needs cheering up and I will do anything for her. Even if that means winding up the neighbours.”   
Vanessa nods and Charity grins at the look of shock on Rhona’s face. “Well, I best leave you to it then. Just don’t go knocking on Marlon’s front door. Leo will be asleep.”  
Vanessa giggles as they watch Rhona walk into the pub. “I can’t believe she actually thinks we are going to play knock door run.”  
Charity gives Vanessa her cocky grin. “Oh, but, babe, we are. First stop, Marlon’s house.”

 

“Oh. My. God. That was so much fun,” Vanessa screams out with a laugh as she collapses onto her sofa.   
Charity kicks her shoes off and hangs up her coat before joining her laughing girlfriend in the living room. Charity lifts Vanessa’s legs and places them on to her lap so she can sit down on the sofa. “It really was, wasn’t it? Marlon’s face was a picture. And I thought Doug was going to kill me!”  
The last thing Charity thought she would be doing tonight, or ever to be honest, was playing knock door run. She hardly ever played it as a kid, so she never ever imagined she would be playing it as an adult. She now thinks though that everyone should play it when they are having a pretty shit time of it. Because god was it fun.

Marlon was their first victim. Vanessa hid in the bushes at the end of his garden, where she could see his front door, but because of the dark he wouldn’t be able to see her. He had opened his door and peered out nervously, as if expecting a masked murder to be waiting for him on the other side. He quickly shut his door so Charity ran back again, and again, and again, until he eventually came out with a hairdryer, which sent Vanessa into fits of laughter as Charity shouted. “Are you going to blow us away?”

The next victims were Robert, Aaron and Liv, who to be honest didn’t really care and stopped coming to the door after the third knock. Then Megan and Frank who shouted out a few strong words and promises of redemption if they knocked again. Vanessa had laughed so hard at that Charity was convinced she was going to pass out from lack of oxygen. Vanessa then felt bad because they had Johnny, but Charity's impression of Megan had her laughing all over again.

Nicola and Jimmy didn’t answer and they skipped Ross’s place. Charity knows how much he is still struggling with the trauma of his acid attack. The attacker is still out there, too, so pranking him like that just isn't fair, and Vanessa agreed wholeheartedly. Vic and Rebecca were a blast, waiting behind the door for Charity’s forth knock. They swung the door open as soon as she knocked and attempted to squirt her with whipped cream. They missed, and joined in on the laughter, saying it made their night a lot more entertaining than normal. Bernice didn’t answer, neither did Bob and Brenda. They skipped Laurels house for fear of waking up Dottie, and because she lives on her own, they didn’t want to scare her.  
Doug and Diane however really didn’t see the funny side at all. Doug came out with a saucepan and a spatula and Diane had her phone ready to call the police. Doug caught sight of Charity’s jacket and gave chase, calling her all the names under the sun whilst Diane told her what she thinks about her, again. 

 

“Doug is a nit of a nut job, isn’t he,” Vanessa says she pulls her legs off Charity’s lap. “It was so much fun though. Most of them were good sports when they realised it was us.”  
“They were,” Charity agrees, despite knowing she has several abusive text messages from various members of the village. She won’t tell Vanessa about the messages. She is all smiley and happy again, and reading the messages will probably bring her mood right back down. “It was fun.”  
Vanessa smiles and crawls across the small sofa until she is sat in Charity’s lap. “Thank you.”  
Charity pushes Vanessa’s hair behind her eyes. “What for?”  
“For doing that. It was immature, and silly, and probably the last thing you wanted to do, but—”  
“But nothing,” Charity interrupts gently. “I would do anything for you, Ness, anything. I will do whatever it takes to make you smile, laugh, feel safe and happy, because I am your girlfriend and that’s what I am supposed to do.”  
Tears fill Vanessa’s eyes and Charity panics until she sees Vanessa smile. “You are so amazing,” Vanessa gushes as she leans forward and rests her forehead against Charity’s. “I am so lucky to have you.”  
Charity squeezes Vanessa’s hips. “I am the lucky one.”  
Vanessa smiles and kisses Charity. She bites down on Charity’s bottom lip, drawing out a moan from the other woman.   
“Talking about being lucky and you doing anything for me….How about some of the fun naked time I asked for earlier?”  
Charity laughs and kisses Vanessa softly. “Whatever you want, my lady.”

11/01/19- Hotten General Hospital

“Man, I would have loved to have played knock door run with you guys.”  
Rhona laughs at Tracey. “Half the village wanted to kill them the next day.”  
Charity laughs too. “They did.”  
Charity fills them in on the digs and moans she got over the following days. No one said anything to Vanessa. They all just assumed it was Charity’s idea and therefore blamed her, as usual. She didn’t mind though. Vanessa was still a bit fragile in the days that followed, so anyone having a go at her would have more than likely set her off again.   
“Can…..Can I ask you something?” Tracey asks gently.   
“Of course.”  
“Why did you break up that day? You two were so happy, and then all of a sudden you dumped her and told her you had slept with someone else.”  
“She never told you why we broke up?”  
“No,” Tracey answers looking at Rhona who shakes her head as well.  
“She called the police after I told her about Bails. She was the first person I had ever told the full story. I trust her like I have never trusted anyone before, and she broke that trust. I was more hurt than angry. It reminded me why I always refused to give my full trust to anyone.”  
“You forgave her pretty quickly though,” Rhona says.  
“I did,” Charity smiles as she remembers Vanessa’s big speech in the pub about cracking Charity code, how she called her amazing and even after Charity had screamed at her and lied to her, she still really, really liked her. “She is impossible to stay mad at.”  
“Watching you two make up behind the bar was cute. Even if you did stand there snogging for half an hour. I bet the private making up was quite something.” Tracey wiggles her eyebrows with a grin as she finishes her sentence.   
“Oh, it was. It was the talk we had afterwards that really stands out to me though. We laid everything out onto the table and it was probably the most honest I have ever been with anyone in my life. We both were open and honest with each other. It was amazing.”  
“How so?” Tracey asks.  
“Well, it all started with her apologising to me, again.”


	10. Ten

“How so?”   
“Well, it all started with her apologising to me, again.”

12/04/18- The Woolpack

Charity gulps in as much air as she can as Vanessa slowly kisses her way back up Charity’s body, stopping to kiss her hip bones, her pubic line, swirling her tongue around her belly button before trailing a line of soft kisses up Charity’s stomach. She reaches Charity breasts and makes eye contact with her girlfriend as she takes a nipple into her mouth, sucking on it gently as she tweaks the other with the fingers.   
“Babe, you are going to get me going again.”  
Vanessa releases Charity’s nipple with a pop. “That is my aim, if you hadn’t noticed.”  
Not that Charity was complaining, but Vanessa had made their make-up sex all about Charity. She only let Charity get her off once before she gave Charity three of the most intense orgasms she could ever remember having. Her limbs feel heavy and were still shaking, her heart was beating faster than it ever had before, and she felt like she was on cloud nine. 

She knew what Vanessa was doing. She was trying to apologise through sex. She was trying to ease the pain she knew she had caused by giving Charity as much pleasure as she could take. She knew the game because she herself had played it before. She’d done it to win round her husbands after spending too much of their money or letting her attentions drift to other men and women. She would spend time on them, on their needs, denying herself pleasure and making it all about them, as if denying herself made up for whatever she had done.

Whenever she did it she always felt cheap and dirty afterwards. They always lay there, chests heaving, their body humming with pleasure as they reminded her that her skills between the sheets were one of the only reasons they kept her around for. She didn’t want that for Vanessa. She didn’t want Vanessa to think Charity’s pleasure was more important than her own, no matter what she had done.   
“Babe, stop,” Charity commands gently.   
Vanessa frowns as she moves her body off Charity’s. “Have I done something wrong?”  
“God no, babe. You need to have a bit of fun too though,” Charity says with the cocky grin Vanessa normally can’t resist. “It can be all about me.”  
She reaches for Vanessa and is surprised and a little hurt when Vanessa stops her hands in their tracks.   
“I want tonight to be all about me, Charity. I hurt you, I betrayed your trust. I….I don’t feel like just saying sorry is enough.”  
Charity sighs. “Vanessa, I have forgiven you. You don’t have to keep beating yourself up about it, ok?”  
Vanessa sits upright, she sheet dropping into her lap, revealing her fantastic breasts. Charity licks her lips and reaches out again, and again she gets knocked back.  
“How can you just forgive me that quickly? Surely you are still mad at me. I broke your trust, Charity. I went behind your back and I hurt you.”  
Charity sighs and sits up, mirroring Vanessa’s position. She knows Vanessa is being serious and isn’t in sex mode anymore when her eyes don’t drop to her chest. She is obsessed with Charity’s breasts. She has been since their first night together. How on earth Vanessa didn’t really realise she liked women before now was beyond Charity.   
“Yeah, you did, bit I hurt you too.”  
Vanessa holds up her still bandaged wrist. “This was an accident. I lost my footing. Stop blaming yourself.”  
“I didn’t mean your wrist. I meant what happened yesterday with that guy.”  
Hurt flashes through Vanessa’s eyes before she quickly masks it with an understanding smile. “I get why you did it.”  
“And I get why you called the police.”  
“Do you?”  
“Yeah. You couldn’t stand the thought of him getting away with what he did to me.” Charity says, repeating Vanessa’s words from earlier in the bar.   
“That and I felt……..” Vanessa breaks off.  
“You felt…..” Charity gently prompts.  
“Helpless. I always feel helpless. For once I thought I could help. And it wasn’t about me thinking I know what is best for you. I swear it wasn’t. I just…..listening to you, listening to what he put you through.... I know there is nothing I can do to change that. If I could, I would go back in time and save you from him. It kills me that I can't.”  
Charity’s lips twitch. She has no doubt that even at the age of fourteen Vanessa was a feisty little thing.   
“Watching Rhona go through what she had to with Pierce was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. It was so hard watching someone I hold so dear go through something so horrific. She was a mess. She lashed out, she didn’t eat, she became withdrawn. But when she got that justice it was like a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She was suddenly brighter again. She started to laugh more, and she wanted to go out more and she could finally focus on the rest of her life. She was a bit more like her old self again. She will never completely be the same woman. No one would. But getting that justice, Charity, it helped her.” Vanessa leans forward and gently kisses Charity. “I saw the pain in your eyes. The fact that he is still out there living his life as if nothing happened whilst you live with what he did to you every day hurts you. I know it does.”

Charity feels a wave of unease sweep through her. The fact that Vanessa can read her so well so early in their relationship is worrying. She is an expert at hiding what she is feeling. She does it so well. No one truly knows what is going on in her mind. Hiding her true feelings is her biggest defence mechanism. If people can read you, can see how scared, hurt, angry or upset you are they can use it against you. She should know, she has used people’s fears against them more times than she would care to admit.   
She never ever thought she would be completely open and honest with another person. She always thought she would always hold part of herself back, from everyone. Then again, she never imagined that she would trust someone as much as she trusts Vanessa, so the fact that she clearly can't hide her true feelings from her shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.   
“It does hurt, babe. But I have learnt to live with that hurt.”  
“You shouldn’t have to, Charity.”  
“I know, but no one should have to live with hurt should they. We all carry something dark from our past. Something that ripped us apart. Yes, we all rebuild ourselves back up, but we always carry it.”  
“I know that. I see what you mean. But don’t……have you never thought that getting justice, making him hurt and ruining his life, might make you hurt just that little bit less?”  
Charity sighs. “Babe, I’m not the kind of person that gets justice. Rhona is. Rhona is good, and kind, and an honourable person. I tried to frame my own cousin and his girlfriend for a fire. I’ve robbed people, lied to people, I faked a miscarriage and made someone think they could have caused the death of my unborn child. I have abandoned my children. I have broken people’s hearts. I have cheated. I have stolen from others. I always put myself before others. I don’t deserve any form of justice, babe.”  
“Do you not think you ended up doing some of those things because of what he did to you? What if he had helped you instead of…….What if he had gotten you off the streets and helped you build your life back up. Imagine where you could be now. A lot of those things you did just to survive.”

Charity honestly thinks Vanessa has blinders one when she looks at Charity. She never sees the bad stuff, just the good stuff. She always defends some of Charity’s behaviour, even when Charity herself can’t even defend it.  
“What he did to me isn’t an excuse for the way I have behaved, Vanessa.”  
Vanessa opens her mouth, probably to argue her point even more, but instead she closes it and takes a deep breath. “Ok then. What do you want to do now?”  
Charity remembers the last time Vanessa asked her this question. It resulted in Charity chucking her out and Vanessa going to the police.   
“What do you mean?”  
“Do you want to move on completely, never mention him again. Or do you want to tell me more about what happened with him?”  
“I want to forget him. I honestly don’t think about it that often. I want to carry on like that.”  
Vanessa hums. “Ok then.” She runs her hands down Charity’s arms and links their fingers together. “I will do everything I can to prove you can trust me again. And I promise when I get that trust back, I will never break it again.”  
“You have it back, Ness. I know you won’t break it again. I mean, you haven’t told your Dad, Tracey or Megan about it. You had plenty of chance to explain why we broke up, but you didn’t.”  
Vanessa smiles. “I did say it was my fault we fell out. Not that they believed me.”  
Charity laughs, not surprised by that in the slightest. Charity’s laughter slows as she thinks about the apology she needs to make.   
“I am sorry for making you believe I was going to be sleeping with that guy.”  
Vanessa takes a deep breath. “I get it. You were angry and hurt. You wanted to hurt me. I…..I presume there was a guy involved somewhere though. Megan rang and said you were all over this guy in the pub.”  
Charity winces as she remembers her embarrassing display in the pub yesterday. “Yeah I was all over him. I swear though nothing happened. The thought of it made me feel sick. I went out the back to get rid of him. He followed me out there and I told him to go away. I may have shouted at him a bit, about how I hated men and Noah overheard me. That was not long before you turned up.”

For the first time in her life she hadn’t wanted to sleep with someone to get back at someone else. When she slept with Declan it was to get back at Jai, for the way he had been making her feel and how he had been treating her. The thought of sleeping with that random guy in the pub yesterday though had left her feeling sick to the stomach. The thought of sleeping with anyone other than Vanessa again made her feel sick to the stomach. What has this woman done to her? She lay in bed last night, clutching her baby’s blue hat and wishing Vanessa was there with her. Vanessa had betrayed her and she still wanted her there with her.

“And I’m sorry for saying I regretted being with you.”  
Vanessa lifts Charity’s hands to her mouth and presses a gentle kiss to the back of them. She doesn’t say anything, she just squeezes Charity’s hands and holds them close to her chest.   
"I will never, ever regret being with you, babe"  
"Same here."  
“And…..I…..I really want you to know, Ness, that I do trust you. I trust you with my deepest secrets. I trust you with everything I have."  
Vanessa’s eyes water and she gives Charity her sweetest smile. “I trust you too. With my darkest secrets and with everything I have.”  
Charity laughs. “I bet you don’t have any dark secrets, babe.”  
“I do…..When Johnny was born I…..I didn’t love him. I had post natal depression, I know that now, but I didn’t love him. I was so tempted to just walk out of that hospital and never look back. I was willing to let Adam and Victoria take him and raise him as their own. The thought makes me feel sick now. I couldn’t love that little boy more if I tried. But for a while I couldn’t stand looking at him.”  
Charity can’t imagine Vanessa feeling like that. She lights up around her little boy. She loves him more than he will ever know. He is her world. Vanessa must hate herself for feeling like that, even though her emotions and how she felt was completely out of her control.  
“It was out of your control, Vanessa.”  
“Just like your situation. Like you said, we all have something in our past that haunts and hurts us. That’s mine. Not as bad as yours, obviously, but now you know mine and I know yours.”  
Charity raises her eyebrow. “A bit like you show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”  
Vanessa giggles. She gently pushes Charity backwards and climbs on top of her. Charity can feel Vanessa’s arousal pressing into her stomach, and her body reacts instantly. Will she ever not want this woman with an intensity that scares her? God she hopes not.   
“Before I show you mine. Let’s make a deal. We tell each other our secrets, but no one else. We are open and honest with each other about how we feel, what we are scared of, what we do and don’t want to happen. And most of all, we trust each other and hold on to and treasure that trust. So many couples don’t have that. I want us to have that.”  
Charity runs her hands down Vanessa’s naked back, loving the feel of the soft, warm skin beneath her finger tips.   
“Deal. Now,” Charity sits up she is nose to nose with Vanessa. “I believe it is three to one on the orgasm front, and I have some catching up to do.”  
Vanessa wiggles in Charity’s lap. “That you do, Miss Dingle, that you do.”

11/01/19- Hotten General Hospital

“She often thinks with her heart first and her head second,” Rhona comments. “She lied during Pierce’s trial because she was just so angry with him and she wanted to make sure he got sent down.” Rhona smiles softly at her best friend. “She has always been like that. Thinking with her heart first and her head second.”  
Charity nods. “I know. It has taken some getting used to, but I know now what she is like. I know she didn’t report Bails to hurt me. She hasn’t got a nasty bone in her body. She is just very protective.”  
“She worried about you constantly throughout the whole Bails thing. She would tell me all the time how worried she was, how she wished she could do more for you. Once it became public knowledge after the press conference obviously. She never mentioned anything before,” Rhona says somewhat urgently. The last thing she wants is for Charity to think Vanessa betrayed her trust.  
“I know. I know she spoke to you about it. She told me.”  
“I think she wanted my perspective on it all. I think, because I had been through a trial she wanted to work out what coping mechanisms helped. She……she did ask if I had nightmares….I presume that means you did too.”  
Charity nods. “Yeah. Bad ones. It wasn’t pleasant. There was one night when I woke the pub up with my screaming. Ness hadn’t stayed over and….Well, they are always worse when she isn’t there. Noah called her, and she came over. It was two am, she was in her pj’s and she hadn’t brushed her hair, but she wasn’t half a sight for sore eyes. She calmed me down. And she actually helped me out so much. I've had a nightmare half as bad as that one since because of Vanessa.”  
“How did she help you?” Tracey asks.  
“Well, not in a way I was expecting.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your wonderful comments. I am glad you are all enjoying reading this as much as I am enjoying writing it.


	11. Eleven

“She calmed me down.”

“How?”

“Well, not in the way I was expecting.”

15/06/18

_ “Your mine, little girl, do you hear me. You are mine. You belong to me. You do as I say.” _

_ Slap. _

_ “You do as I say when I say it.” _

_ Slap. _

_ “Do you hear me!” _

_ “Yes, Mark, yes.” _

_ “Don’t call me that you little slut. You don’t deserve to call me by my name. Scum like you.” _

_ Slap. _

_ “Get on the bed. Now.” _

_ “No, please, I can’t. It hurts too bad.” _

_ He laughs and sneers in her face. “Do I look like I care. Get on the bed before I beat you down onto it.” _

_ “No please!” _

_ A baby cries in the background and Mark turns to face the crib in the corner. “You don’t even deserve him. You don’t deserve anything.” _

_ Mark walks over to the crib and picks up the screaming baby. He is small and weak and he needs her. He needs his Mummy. _

_ “Please don’t take my baby.” _

_ “You don’t deserve him, Charity. You don’t deserve anyone.” _

_ Charity watches helplessly as Mark walks out of the flat with her baby. She tries to move but she is being held down. The faces of the many men Mark has brought into this room laughing at her as she tries to get to her baby.  _

_ “Please, no, my baby!” _

 

“Mum, mum, wake up,”

Charity comes to with a start. She is sweating and shaking uncontrollably. Her heart keeps pounding as she slowly comes round to the fact that she is awake. It was a nightmare, another nightmare, but a nightmare none the less. It isn’t real. Not anymore. He can’t hurt her anymore. He can’t.

“Mum, you were having a nightmare. I could hear you screaming from my room.”

“Charity, are you ok?” Chas asks from Charity’s bedroom door. “We heard you screaming.”

Charity gulps in a lung full of air, trying to steady her breathing. She is sweating that much that her hair and clothes are stuck to her and her bedsheets are soaked. There is no way she will be able to go back to sleep now. 

“I’m fine. It was just a nightmare. We all have them.” She smiles at her son and Chas trying to reassure them she is ok. She hates people seeing her like this. Vulnerable and scared. 

“Not like that we don’t, Mum. Look at you. You are all sweaty and you are still shaking.”

Charity looks down at her hands and sees the slight tremor in them. She clenches her fists together and shoves her hands under her drenched quilt. 

“I’m fine,” she croaks out. 

“Was it about him?” Chas asks.

“No, and I said I am fine. So, can you both please go back to bed. I will be fine.”

Neither of them move and she holds back from snapping their heads off. They are only trying to help, but no one can help her. 

“Mum, I think you need to call Vanessa,” Noah says, surprising her. He is still very moody around Vanessa and he generally ignores her most of the time. The fact that he sees how much Vanessa helps his Mum says a lot. He may act like he doesn’t like Vanessa, but he clearly sees how good she is for his mum. 

“No, babe. It’s..” She looks over at the clock. “Two in the morning. She will be asleep. I will go and have a glass of warm milk and come right back to bed. I never have two nightmares in the same night.”

That’s the truth, but only because she can never go back to sleep. Not unless Vanessa is there with her. 

Vanessa seems to have some weird sixth sense when it comes to Charity and her nightmares. When Vanessa is here her nightmares are only just starting when Vanessa wakes her up. She holds her, kisses her, tells her she is there with her and she won’t let anyone hurt her, before softly humming Charity back to sleep whilst she holds her tight in her arms. 

“Honestly, I am fine. Thank you, both of you. Go back to bed.”

Noah reluctantly leaves his mums room, looking over his shoulder at her one last time before walking back into his bedroom. Chas however stays put. She narrows her eyes at Charity as she takes her in. The state she is in shocks the hell out of Chas. Charity is the toughest woman she knows. To see her still shaking with fear in her eyes is unsettling. 

“What baby were you shouting about?” Chas asks softly. “Debbie?”

Charity’s skin goes cold. Chas can’t know about her little boy. No one can. Not yet. 

“Yeah. Debbie always makes her way into my nightmares. I think because it wasn’t long since I had lost her that it all happened. The events just entwine themselves.”

Chas gives a single nod. “You know where I am if you need me.”

Charity forces out another smile. “Yeah. I know.”

Chas leaves and Charity waits a few seconds before letting out the tears that have been trying to fall since Noah woke her up. It’s been just over two weeks since she found out her baby boy, Ryan, survived his birth. Since then all her nightmares have included him. Some are just her and Ryan, as a baby, with Charity trying desperately to get to him, to save him, to find him, to stop him being taken away from her. Some include Bails. He is trying to hurt Ryan, to take him from her, to hide him away, to make sure she can’t get to him. She isn’t sure if it’s a sign of things to come. Her subconscious telling her that she has already screwed up with Ryan. After the voicemail she left him last week she doesn’t expect to hear from him ever again. 

She climbs out of bed and grabs her dressing gown. She plans on having a drink, but not hot milk. Anything alcoholic will do. And enough of it to make her pass out will be preferable. She doesn’t have any nightmares when she has been drinking. She doesn’t want to use alcohol to numb the pain and make her forget, but it is one of the only things that help her forget. And right now she wants to forget the fact that Bails is probably not going to be found guilty and her son, who she has mourned for twenty-seven years, doesn’t want to have anything to do with her. Just one more night of self-medicating with alcohol won’t hurt. After that she will find another way to get through it. For now though, she needs something strong. 

She walks into the dark living room and heads straight for the kitchen where she has a private stash of Whiskey and Gin hidden away. She goes straight for the whiskey and grabs herself a glass from the cupboard. She is about to pour when she stops, swearing she hears a quiet knock on the backdoor. She puts the bottle down and heads towards the living room door, listening out for another knock. She is about to turn away, convinced she imagined it, when she hears another soft knock. She slowly walks to the door, a feeling on unease taking over as she wonders who the hell would be knocking on her door at this time in the morning. 

“Mum, answer the door,” Noah whispers over the stairs, making her jump. 

She does as he says, slowing opening the door to reveal a tired, but beautiful Vanessa Woodfield on her doorstep. 

“Noah rang me,” Vanessa says instead of a greeting. 

Charity looks up to where her son was just stood but he has gone. 

“Come one.” Vanessa says holding her hand out towards Charity. 

“Ness, it is lovely that you have come over and all that, but I was just about to head back to bed and go back to—”

“You never go back to sleep after a nightmare, not unless I am there, you told me that yourself. You also told me you self-medicate with Whiskey after a nightmare. So, I bet if I let you go back in there on your own the last thing you will be doing is going back to bed. Am I right?”

Charity tilts her head back and lets out an exasperated sigh. The problem with being so open and honest with Vanessa means she can't get away with lying to her. She remembers telling Vanessa she can’t sleep after a nightmare unless she was with her, and about the drinking. It was during one of their ‘open and honest’ conversations they seem to be having quite a lot of recently. 

Everyone else she had been with would have just left her to it, but not Vanessa. She probably knows what Charity needs to get her through this more than Charity does. 

“Yeah, you’re right,” Charity agrees, knowing Vanessa can see right through her lies. “So, what do you suggest we do, Dr Woodfield,” Charity snaps. 

She has called her that a few times now, when she feels like Vanessa is trying to psychoanalyse her. She doesn’t mean for the comment to hurt. She doesn’t want to upset Vanessa. Charity has just always relied on herself to get through the hard times. She has always been the only one who knows what is best for her. She is still struggling to work out how to deal with someone else knowing her that well, too, without feeling weak. She knows that Vanessa knowing how to help her doesn’t make her weak, but she can’t help how she feels. 

Vanessa ignores the jab, as she always does, and holds her hand out again. “Come on.”

Charity gestures to Vanessa’s dressing gown and slippers before doing so with her own. “Like this?”

“It is two am, Charity, no one will see us. Come on.”

Charity takes her hand and immediately relaxes. Vanessa is her safe place. No matter what mood she is in or what situation she faces herself in, Vanessa is her safe place, her rock, her guiding light. After Debbie got shot all it took was the sound of Vanessa’s voice over the phone, telling her everything was going to ok, and she calmed down. Vanessa has this weird calming effect on her that no one ever has before.

They walk silently through the village. The only sounds that can be heard are noises from the odd wild animal and the odd car that drives past the village. It is eerily quiet yet at the same time oddly soothing. They don’t have to make small talk with anyone. No one will stare at them, silently wondering why Vanessa is with her. She is used to hearing people whisper about them in the pub. No one quite understanding what the sweet, kind vet saw in the mean, outspoken landlady. Even though they had been official for nearly four months people would still look at them in bemusement as they walked down the street or sat in the café together. 

They head towards the church and Charity has a horrible feeling Vanessa is going to try and make her pray or something. She briefly mentioned religion the other day as a form of therapy, but Charity quickly shut her down. She hates religion. Her Dad used it to constantly beat her with verbally as a child. She may be named after one of the seven heavenly virtues, but that was a close a relationship with God as she was ever going to have.

Thankfully they walk past the church and head towards the park. Charity frowns as Vanessa wordlessly leads her through the gate and gently nudges her towards the swings. 

“What are we doing?”

“Remember you told me about the conversation you had with Chas, about when you were a kid and you would go on the swings at her house and imagine you were flying away from it all?”

“Yeah….”

“Let’s do that. But instead of imagining that you are flying away from it all, lets imagine that every swing pushes those nightmares further and further away.”

“Ness, I don’t think that will work.”

“Try it,” Vanessa says with her optimistic smile. 

Charity sighs and looks over at the swings. As a kid imagining she was escaping the horrible world she lived in with her dad worked. For those hours she was on the swings she was safe, she was happy, she was loved. 

Vanessa jumps onto a swing and gently swings her legs back and forth. She looks over her shoulder at Charity and smiles gently, encouragingly. She never pushes Charity in to doing anything she doesn’t want to do. It may seem like that at times to others looking in, but she only ever has Charity’s best interests at heart. She knows what is best for Charity more than Charity does herself at times. 

Charity sighs and pulls the cord on her dressing gown tighter as she joins Vanessa on the swings. They swing silently for a few minutes before Vanessa gently asks the question Charity has been waiting for. 

“Was Bails in it?”

Charity nods. Vanessa never shy’s away from asking Charity about her nightmares. She says it helps, to get the demons out of her head if she talks about them. If she keeps them locked away they repeatedly break free and come back for her time and time again. 

“Was Ryan in it?”

Charity nods again. 

“Anyone else?”

“Some of the other men,” Charity whispers.

They swing a bit more before Vanessa starts talking again. 

“With every kick forward imagine you are pushing Bails further away.”

Charity closes her eyes and does what Vanessa says, kicking her legs harder than she ever has before. She couldn’t care less if she kicked herself so high she fell off. Maybe the hurt of the fall would replace the hurt in her heart. 

“Is it working?”

Charity shakes her head.

“Then picture that with every kick you are shoving him away with your arms. You are stronger than him, Charity, you always have been. You just didn’t know it at the time. Now you do, and now you can prove it to him, and yourself.”

Charity does. She pictures Bails in her minds eye, pictures herself pushing him. 

“That’s it. You are stronger than him. You are stronger than him, Charity. He is a weak, weak man.”

In her mind she sees Bails shrinking away from her. The force in her arms scaring him as he scared her. Hurting him as he hurt her. A sob breaks out of her chest as he turns and runs in the other direction. She chases him, pushing him as she catches him. He begs for her to stop. He begs for her to leave him be, promising that he will never hurt her again. 

“It’s working, Ness, it is working.”

She hears Vanessa’s smile in her voice as she says, “Now the other men. Do the same with them, Charity. Get rid of them, too.”

Charity feels more confident with each kick of her legs. She is swinging so high that the wind is sweeping through her hair. With each kick she sends them running in the opposite direction. Every single disgusting one of them. 

Charity slows her kicks as she starts to feel more relaxed. Her limbs and her heart feel lighter, like she really has chased all those men away. She slowly opens her eyes and looks at her girlfriend. Vanessa is still swinging slowly, not really putting much effort into her kicks. 

“Has it helped?”

Charity smiles. “Yeah, so much.”

“Good.”

Charity’s smile fades as she thinks about the other person in her nightmare. “What about Ryan?”

Vanessa chews on her bottom lip as she looks forward. “Ryan has only just started coming into your nightmares, right? When you have had them over the years, he was never apart of them, was he?”

Charity shakes her head. Her baby, thankfully, had never appeared in her nightmares. It was normally just Bails. The other men hardly ever appeared either. 

“How does he feature in them? As a baby or the grown man he is now?”

“A baby. He is always a baby.”

“And what happens with Ryan in your dreams?”

“Bails takes him away from me. Or the nurses. It doesn’t matter who it is. I can never catch him. I always lose him.”

Vanessa stops her swing and walks in front of Charity, stopping hers in the process. Charity can just make Vanessa’s features out in the street lamp. She is deep in thought, probably thinking about what it all means and how she can help Charity through it.

“I think Ryan’s arrival in your nightmares definitely matches up with his arrival in your life, which makes perfect sense.”

“How does it make sense?”

Vanessa is one of those people who believes your dreams and nightmares are telling you something. Charity doesn’t, she hardly ever remembers her dreams, and her nightmares are just her past reliving itself in her subconscious. Sometimes it is more horrific and sometimes it is just the same. It never ends any differently to how it all ended in real life. 

“Are you scared when you trying to get him back?”

“Yeah.”

“Then it makes sense because you know he is alive now, Charity. You have spent all these years believing he was gone and there was nothing you could do to get him back. Whereas now you know he is alive. You are fighting for him, to get him back in your nightmares. It is all you, your heart, your mind, telling you that you want to fight for him in real life. You scared because you can’t face losing him again. Your heart wants to you fight for him. This is how it is telling you.”

Charity lets thank sink in. Vanessa has a point. The thought of losing Ryan again for good terrifies her. She has only just got him back, she can’t imagine losing him again. She has to fight for him. She has to fight for him like she didn’t  know she could back then. She has to get her boy back.

“Maybe those weird dream articles you have been reading have actually come in useful then.”

Vanessa gives Charity her adorable smug smile. She rarely uses it. It only ever comes out when she is convinced Charity is going to say she is wrong and she surprises Vanessa by agreeing with her. 

Charity stands up and wraps her arms around Vanessa. “Fancy coming back to mine. You know I can’t go back to sleep without you. As long as Tracey is ok with keeping an ear out for Johnny of course.”

Vanessa’s breath catches in her throat, as it often does when Charity says something like that. Charity isn’t always very open with her feelings about the other woman and how she makes her feel. She knows she should be. Vanessa is so open and honest about how she feels about Charity. Being soppy has never been her thing though, and Vanessa doesn’t seem to mind. 

“I told her I wouldn’t be coming back tonight.” Vanessa leans up and kisses Charity so tenderly it brings tears to Charity’s eyes. “Come on, let’s get you back to bed.”

11/01/19-Hotten General Hospital

“She ran out of the house like a bat out of hell that night,” Tracey recalls. “She just said you needed her, and she wouldn’t be back until the morning. I knew it was bad because she looked terrified.”

Charity gently strokes her girlfriend's hand. “She is always there for me when I need her. She never asks any questions, she just does what I need. She’s amazing.”

This is what Charity was struggling with the most right now. Not having Vanessa tell her it was all going to be ok was hard. She didn’t know how to deal with the fear she felt without Vanessa by her side. Somehow touching Vanessa, holding her hand and kissing her forehead, was helping keeping her grounded. That and the machine beeping, showing Vanessa’s strong heartbeat, her fight for life. 

“She is amazing. She was my pillar of strength throughout everything that happened with Pierce. She cares more about others than herself, which is a rare trait nowadays.”

Charity can’t argue with that. After all, she has spent her entire adult life putting herself and her needs before everyone else. She stands up and places two kisses on Vanessa’s forehead. 

“My beautiful, caring, kind, sweet, amazing girlfriend,” she whispers against Vanessa’s forehead, hoping against all hope that Vanessa can hear her. “I love you.”

Charity sits down and blushes at the soppy smiles Rhona and Tracey are giving her.

“I don’t know what I would have done without her with everything that happened with David and the abortion. She is my rock.”

Charity nods. “She is everyone’s rock.” Another memory flashes into Charity’s mind and she smiles. “I remember thinking that one sunny, warm July morning and deciding I needed to treat her, and the boys.”

Tracey frowns. “How did you treat her?”

“Well, you remember the little trip to Ireland we went on right?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your wonderful comments! They mean the world :)


	12. Twelve

“How did you treat her?”

“Well, surely you remember the little trip to Ireland we went on?”

31/07/18- The Woolpack

“What are your plans today then?” Chas asks as she walks into the backroom from behind the bar. 

Charity sips her tea and shrugs. She hasn’t even changed out of her PJ’s yet, let alone thought about how is as going to spend her day. “Nothing much, why?”

“I need you to work. We are throwing Aaron and Robert a surprise engagement party, and obviously Vic and I will be there. Vic is going to do her morning shift and then come on over afterwards.”

“Excuse me! Why am I not invited to this party? I am always the life and soul of a party.”

Chas laughs. “Do you want to come?”

Charity raises her nose in the air. “Not particularly.”

Chas shakes her head. “Exactly.”

“Still an invite would be nice,” she mutters. “Wait, how long is this party going to go on for? Ross is bringing Moses over at two.”

“See if Vanessa can have him,” Chas suggests as she grabs an apple from the fruit bowl.

“She is my girlfriend, Chas, not my babysitter.”

“Then rearrange with Ross or something. Not my problem, Charity.”

“Well, it kind of is. This is your pub, it is your sons engagement party and you are leaving one for the other, meaning I will have no one to help me with my little boy.”

Chas rubs her hand over her growing belly. “Are you seriously arguing with a pregnant woman?”

“I would argue with a hundred of them,” Charity answers with a grin, knowing she is just winding up her cousin even more. 

Chas sighs and turns on her heel, heading back into the bar. “Sort it, Charity. And don’t you dare skip out of this shift.”

Charity mimics Chas, earning herself a dodgy look from Noah as he walks into the living room. He drops down in the sofa with a huff and looks over at his mother. 

“What’s for breakfast?” Noah asks, knowing he will get the same answer he always gets, ‘make it yourself and find out.’

Charity stands, taking her empty mug with her and placing it in the sink. “What do want?”

His genuine surprise makes her laugh, even more so knowing was she has planned next. 

“Toast?” he says, testing the waters. 

“Ok.” 

Charity walks over to the breadbin, grabs two slices of toast and throws them at him. 

“Put them in the toaster, which is by the sink, and you will get some toast. Magic really.”

Noah rolls his eyes. “Why can’t you be—”

“Like a normal mother,” Charity finishes for him. She has lot count of the amount of times she’s heard this speech. “Babe, I am trying to—”

“Make me big, strong and independent like you. Yeah, yeah I get it.”

Charity looks over at her son as she laughs. “So, what are you doing today. Are you seeing any of your mates?”

“No. They are all on holiday. All of them. It sucks we haven’t got a holiday booked this summer.”

Charity mentally agrees with him. God knows she could do with a holiday. She hasn’t got that much money floating around though, and a holiday in the summer holidays are always twice the price of holidays in term time. That is why she always takes Noah in term time, even with the fine she gets it still works out a hell of a lot cheaper. 

What she wouldn’t do for some time in the sun. She would give anything to get away from this village for a week or two. Everything is so heightened right now. Sarah is ill. Chas is struggling with everything she is going through with Grace. She has the trail date looming over her. Everywhere she looks people are now looking at her with pity in their eyes instead of the usual contempt or hatred. She is struggling to hack it. She feels like she could break at any minute. If it wasn’t for Vanessa and the boys, she is sure she would have lost it ages ago. 

Vanessa with, her warmth, her strength, her heart, was Charity’s guiding light. The only thing keeping her focused. Helping her through all the hard crap life was throwing at her. She was not only holding Charity up through the hard times but facing them head on with her. God knows it must be taking its toll on her, too. Vanessa would probably jump at the chance to go on holiday. 

With that thought, Charity jumps up and runs to the cabinet. She grabs her laptop and has it turned on before she is even sat down. She waits impatiently for it to fire up, mentally having a go at herself for failing to buy herself another one as it takes forever to lead past the first page. Noah watches in confusion as she jumps up and down in her seat with excitement when it finally starts working. She quickly googles ‘cheap summer package holidays’ and loads of suggestions come up. A lot of them are holidays in England. Caravan holidays mainly, but surprisingly most of them are more expensive than the ones abroad. She sighs as she scrolls through the holidays listed. Nearly all of them are out of her price range. 

 

“What are you doing?” Noah asks as he places his empty plate in the sink. 

“Trying to find us a holiday, but it turns out that even the cheap package holidays are expensive.”

Noah stands behind her and whistles as he sees some of the prices. “Even the two-star hotels they are expensive.”

Charity scoffs. “Babe, you wouldn’t get me in a two-star hotel anyway.”

He laughs and moves back towards the sofa. “What about Ireland? Miles from school goes there and says it is dirt cheap.”

“Dirt what?”

Noah tuts. “It means really cheap.”

Charity googles ‘Holidays in Ireland’ and is surprised with the results. It is cheap, a hell of a lot cheaper than the holidays she has just looked at. It is mostly Caravan Parks, but they all have hundreds of good reviews.

“Well, it looks like Miles was right It is cheap.”

Noah jumps up off the sofa and peers over her shoulder again. “Wow, they are. What about that one? It is right by the beach too.”

 

Noah points at a picture of a yellow cottage, priced at £350 for fourteen nights, flights included, and it sleeps five. It is one mile from the beach in a place called County Kerry. Charity clicks on the description and it all looks really nice. It has three bedrooms, one with a double bed, the other with one single bed and another with two single beds, which will be perfect for her, Vanessa and the boys.

Impulsively she clicks book now. The cottage is free for the next two weeks, starting from today. There is also a flight taking off from Leeds Airport they could get on, taking off in five hours.

“Babe, start packing your bag. And do Moses one up for me. You will need enough clothes for a week. There is a washing machine, so we can wash anything you want to wear again. I need to go to Vanessa’s.”

Noah frowns. “What, why?”

Charity grabs her laptop and her handbag. “Because, babe, I am going to invite her and Johnny to come with us.” She falters as she sees his glum expression. “If that is ok?”

He shrugs. “Would it matter if it wasn’t?”

Charity’s shoulders drop. “Of course it would, babe.”

He sighs and shrugs again. “Whatever. I don’t really care. It saves me staying up late and having to talk to you when Moses goes to bed I suppose.”

There is a jokey tone in his voice and Charity smiles. He may not be overly friendly with Vanessa yet, but he tolerated her presence and wasn’t rude to her anymore. This holiday could help them bond a bit. The thought makes her stomach feel all warm. 

“That’s my boy. Now you go and get started. I’ll run to Vanessa’s and tell her what is going on.”

She runs out of the pub, telling Chas and Victoria she will only be five minutes. On route to Vanessa’s she calls Ross and tells him she will need Moses within the hour. He, thankfully, is fine with it and promises to drop their son off as soon as he has finished his breakfast and he has gotten him cleaned up. 

She runs up Vanessa’s front path and opens the door without knocking. Her girlfriend and her sister tend to leave the front door unlocked when they are home. It annoys her how they just leave it unlocked. She often rants about strangers and murders walking in. She walks into the living room and smiles at Tracey who is sat at the kitchen table eating her cereal.

“Morning. Where is Vanessa? Is she upstairs?”

“Nope. She has gone shopping.”

“Shopping!” Charity screeches. “What for?”

“Food.”

“When did she go?”

“What’s with all the questions?”

“When did she go, Tracey?”

Tracey pulls a face and looks up at the clock. “Half an hour ago. She won’t be long.” 

Charity lets out a sigh of relief. Vanessa hates food shopping and is never gone more than forty-five minutes. Charity swears she must whiz around the shop. 

“Ok. I need her passport, and Johnny’s, and I need you to pack them some clothes. A weeks’ worth will do.”

Tracey’s eyes widen. “My god, are you going on the run?”

Charity rolls her eyes. “What, with a weeks’ worth of clothes and our actual passports? Yeah, Trace, we are going on the run.”

“Alright,” Tracey answers back moodily. “Where are you going then?”

Charity quickly fills Tracey in on her plan as she gets Vanessa and Johnny’s passport. Tracey promises to pack both their suitcases for her as she passes Charity their passports.

“Thanks, Trace. I will see you in a bit.”

Forty-five minutes later their holiday is booked. Their bags are all packed. The taxi to take them to the airport is booked and the taxi to pick them up on the other side is also booked. Charity doesn’t feel in the tiniest bit stressed, which is surprising considering how last minute this all was. She doesn't deal with last minute plans very well. She even remembered to give Rhona a call to book Vanessa out of work for two weeks. 

“Right, boys, are we ready?” 

Noah and Moses both grin. 

“Moses, have you got your toys for the plane?”

Moses opens his little backpack which is full to the brim with cars and dinosaurs. 

“Noah, have you got everything you need?”

He nods. “I have. Have you?”

Charity laughs. “Probably not. Come on, let’s go.” 

 

They walk out the backroom and into the bar. Victoria is stood behind the bar serving Eric. She turns and her smile drops when she sees their suitcases.

“What is going on?”

“We go on a holiday!” Moses shouts.

“Now?”

“Right now,” Noah confirms. 

Vic looks at Charity like she is about to kill her. “Chas said you were doing my shift!”

Charity ushers both boys out from behind the bar. “Not my problem. It was originally my day off. No one asked me if I was ok to work. You guys planned this party. You cover your own shift.”

Vic all but growls at Charity. “You are so selfish, Charity!”

“Tell me something I don’t know, babe.” Charity shouts over her shoulder as they get to the front door of the pub. “See ya!”

 

Charity and the boys laugh as they run down the street to Vanessa’s house. Vanessa’s blue beetle car is sat outside. The blue monstrosity a sight for sore eyes. Charity and the boys run up Vanessa’s front path and all run in without knocking, again. Not that Vanessa even notices, she is too busy shouting at Tracey.

“Tracey why is there a suitcase packed for me and Johnny! What is going on?”

Tracey points at Charity. “Ask her.”

Vanessa spins around, her eyes widening as they land on Charity, the boys and the suitcases Charity has left by the front door.

“Hey, babe,” Charity greets cheerfully. “Ready to go on holiday?”

Vanessa blinks slowly. “Holiday?”

“Yeah. Holiday.”

“Holiday?”

Charity rolls her eyes and Noah and Tracey laugh. 

“Yes, Vanessa. A holiday. You know, the place you go away from home, usually very warm and it often involves a plane.”

Vanessa scowls at her girlfriend, clearly not in the mood for Charity’s jokey behaviour. 

“I know what a bloody holiday is, Charity. I just wasn’t aware I was supposed to be going on one.”

“Well, as a last-minute surprise I booked us a holiday. Me, you and the boys. Two weeks away from this place. Just us five, together. I thought we could all do with one. The boys because, well what kid doesn’t love a holiday. Me because I need to get away from this place. And you because you need a break away from carrying everyone’s problems on your shoulders and relax for a change.”

Vanessa’s shoulders loosen, and a smile graces her lips. “That does sound perfect.”

“It’s a cottage as well,” Noah pipes in from behind Charity. “And it’s yellow! You like the colour yellow.”

Tracey laughs at that. “She does, although you would never know it.”

Vanessa ignores them and instead focuses on her girlfriend. Her woman. The woman who is constantly surprising her.

“When are we leaving?”

The taxi beeps as it pulls up outside Vanessa’s house. 

“Now,” Charity grins, her excitement coming through as she realises, she has managed to pull this off in just over an hour. 

Vanessa grasps Charity’s face and kisses her. Noah makes a gagging sound, followed by Tracey.

“I’m not looking forward to two weeks of this.”

 

They pull apart and smile at one another. Charity can’t wait to have this woman and their boys all to herself for the next two weeks. It is going to feel like heaven. A few weeks after they became official Tracey moved back in with Vanessa, so alone time was all but impossible to come by sometimes. It will be nice to have Vanessa’s full attention for two, whole, glorious weeks. 

“Right, off with the lot of yeah before that taxi driver gives up and leaves without you.”

They say their goodbyes and climb into the taxi. The smaller boys fill the time with their excited chatter about playing on the beach and paddling in the sea. Noah mostly listens to them, but joins in occasionally, suggesting games they could play on the beach and in the garden of the cottage.

Vanessa takes hold of Charity’s hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. The smile hasn’t left her face since she climbed into the taxi, and it makes Charity feel teen-feet-tall knowing she put it there. 

“Thank you for doing this.”

Charity leans over and kisses Vanessa softly. “No problem. I can’t wait.”

“Me neither. I can’t wait for sun, sea and……Wait, where are we going?”

Charity laughs. She didn’t realise she hadn’t told Vanessa where they were going. She just got so swept up all in the excitement.Charity reaches into her handbag and pulls out the booking information. She passes it to Vanessa and watches as she reads with a big smile on her face. 

“It looks lovely. I can’t wait to get away for a bit.”

Charity’s phone buzzes in her pocket and she pulls it out. She sees it is a message from Chas and she laughs quietly when she reads in. ‘I hate you! You are in such trouble when you get home!’ 

She puts her phone away and looks back at her girlfriend. “Me, too, babe. Me too.”

After what felt like hours of travelling, they arrived at the cottage. They threw their suitcases into the doorway and went straight back out to find some place to eat. They found a nice little fish and chip shop down by the beach, which really was just a quick ten-minute walk away. They ate their dinner and then had a look around a few of the shops. They brought buckets and spades for the boys, a football and a plastic tennis set for the beach. Everyone was excited as they planned what items they would use first and who would go against who.  The travelling and the rushing around caught up with them though and by half eight everyone was tucked up in bed. Noah was the only one who probably would be asleep soon. He would play on his handheld game until the early hours. 

 

Charity climbs into bed and crawls up behind Vanessa. She throws her arm over Vanessa’s waist, grabbing her hand in the process. She interlocks their fingers and presses a kiss to the back of Vanessa’s head.

“Thank you again for doing this,” Vanessa mumbles as sleep starts to slowly overtake her. 

“You are more than welcome, babe. After everything you do for me, it is the least I can do.”

Vanessa turns in Charity’s arms. She kisses Charity softly. “I would do anything for you.”

Charity watches Vanessa’s eyes close as she says, “I would do anything for you, too, Vanessa.”

11/01/19-Hotten General Hospital.

“Wasn’t it really cold the whole time you were there?” Rhona asks with a grin as she remembers Vanessa coming back from her two week summer holiday without a tan. 

“Not the whole time. I think we had four days where the temperature rose above 17 degrees. It was amazing though. Our first family holiday is one I will always treasure. It wasn’t all plain sailing after that either. Sarah got worse and then the trial came around sooner than I thought it would.”

“You didn’t have it easy that’s for sure,” Tracey says. 

“It wasn’t easy for, Ness either. Especially my behaviour after the trial. I think that was the hardest bit for her. In fact, I know it was. She told me, the night before I went to see my Dad.”

“What did you do?” Rhona asks.

“I got drunk, mouthed off, went missing. The usual Charity Dingle breakdown.”

Tracey frowns. “She never mentioned anything to me about how you behaved after the trial.”

“Well, I definitely got a gentle telling off for it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your comments :)


	13. Thirteen

“She never mentioned anything to me about how you behaved after the trial.”

“Well, I definitely got a gentle telling off for it.”

25/09/18- Tug Ghyll 

Charity watches as her Uncle Zak walks out of Vanessa’s back door. She still doesn’t know whether she wants to strangle him or punch him. She had every right to know that her Dad wanted to see her. It wasn’t his and Joanie’s right to make that decision for her. 

“Well, I wasn’t expecting that,” Vanessa says softly from where she is sat next to Charity on the sofa. “I had already started working out how we could find your dad. I thought it would be easy, given how unique his name is, but I didn’t think it would be that easy.”

Charity looks at girlfriend in surprise. “You were going to help me?”

“Course I was,” Vanessa says. 

Course she was. Charity should have known Vanessa would have started trying to find out how they go about finding him. She probably started doing that the second she got home. Charity never knew anyone as selfless as Vanessa. She would help anyone, even if they didn’t ask for it. Charity thought Vanessa would be there with her through all this, but it hadn’t even crossed her mind that Vanessa would help her search for him. 

“Well, we have his address now,” Charity says, looking down at the piece of paper in her hands. The address wasn’t where she grew up, so he must have moved. She has no idea where the area he lives in now is. Looking at the postcode it is somewhere in Leeds. “I can’t believe he kept this from me.”

“Maybe he thought it wasn’t the right time.”

“I get that, Vanessa, but whether or not I spoke to my dad was my decision to make.”

Vanessa nods slowly. “Do you think you would have gone to see him?”

Going from what Zak told her the letter was sent not long after she got out of prison. 

“No. Probably not. I didn’t have anything to say to him back then. I never thought, until yesterday, that I would have anything to say to him ever again. I didn’t even know if he was still alive.”

“So, no one in your family has anything to do with him then?”

“Not really, no. When I was a kid he kind of alienated himself. Whenever we got invited to parties, he would turn up drunk and kick off.”

“Does that mean you got alienated too?”

Charity shakes her head. “They would normally keep me with them after they kicked him out. Sammy’s mum was lovely and would make sure I was safe, and she let me stay over a lot. Faith was good too, not that I will ever tell her that. Her husband, Shadrach , was a violent drunk too, so I didn’t stay there very often. I would go around and play with Chas all the time during the weekends. Shadrach and my dad often spent the weekends in the pub.”

Vanessa sighs and rubs Charity’s leg. “It must have been horrible.”

“It was. I just wanted someone to care about me enough to take me away from him. Zak said things were different back then, and maybe they were. But if I saw one of my cousins kids being brought up by a drunk, and covered in bruises because of them, I would take them away in a second. I was a good kid, Ness. Until I hit my teens anyway. I wouldn’t have been any trouble. But I was his kid, and I think that just put a black mark over my head.”

Vanessa shakes her head sadly. “I hate that you were living like that. It breaks my heart.”

Charity tries her best to give Vanessa a smile but fails miserably. “Life is better now though, isn’t it. No point dwelling on what I can’t change.”

“Then why do you want to go and see him then?” Vanessa asks. “If you can’t change the past then why go and see him?”

“Because I have always blamed myself for what happened to me, babe. I always thought it was my fault that I was in that position. I got pregnant, I became that angry with my dad that he kicked me out. The rest of my family couldn’t stomach having me around either, so they all got rid too. Then I was stupid enough to trust Bails and believe he would help me. All these years I have been blaming myself for all of that.”

“You were just a child, Charity. None of that is your fault!”

"I know that now. Which is why I want to see him. I have spent the last twenty-seven years blaming myself, when it is his fault I was in that position. I need to know why he chucked me out. I need to know why didn’t love me enough to help me.”

Vanessa sighs and pulls Charity towards her. Charity falls against her girlfriend, resting her head against her shoulder. 

“Do you want me to come with you?”

Vanessa has been with her through everything these past few months, every step of the way, and Charity wouldn’t have been able to get through any of it without her. Facing this last hurdle without her wouldn’t be right. She is Charity’s rock and Charity would need more than ever tomorrow.

“Yeah. If that is ok?”

Vanessa softly kisses her head. “Of course.”

“He will probably be blind drunk and abusive.”

“Even more reason for me to come then. I would hate the thought of you facing that alone. If he hurt you, and I wasn’t there, I would never forgive myself.”

Love flares in Charity’s chest for the woman softly cradling her in her arms. She isn’t ready to say it yet. She will soon, she knows that, but not yet. She needs to have a clear head when she does. Vanessa will probably want to know her head is in the right place when she first hears it too. 

“My little body guard.”

Charity feels Vanessa’s body shake with a little laugh. 

“Less of the little.”

Charity grins and lets out a deep breath. Once she has spoken to her dad and unloaded all the hurt and anger she has been carrying around for the last twenty-odd years, then she can start focusing on her future, their future. Together, with their boys. 

Vanessa’s phone buzzes in her pocket and Charity pulls away from her so she can get it. Vanessa opens her phone and raises her eyebrows. “It is from Noah.”

Charity frowns. “Is he ok? What does it say?”

Charity had never known Noah to text Vanessa before. He called her the night she had her nightmare, but she wasn’t aware that her girlfriend and her son had started communicating outside of when they spent time together. 

“He is fine.” Vanessa opens the message and sighs.

“What? What does it say? Why is he messaging you?”

Vanessa looks hurt and Charity immediately regrets the way that came out. 

“Not that I have a problem with him texting you, babe. But I’ve text him a few times today and he hasn’t responded.”

“He hasn’t responded because he is angry with you!”

“Angry? Why? What does the message say Vanessa?”

“It says, ‘Hi, is mum home yet? Is she sober yet? If not can me and Moses come to your house again please. He can’t see her like that again. It upset him.’”

Guilt hits Charity like a blow to the stomach. “I upset Moses? When?”

Vanessa puts her phone on the table in front of them. “When you were blind drunk and sent him off with Lydia. He told Noah that you shouted at him and you were talking funny. You also nearly fell on him.”

Tears well up in her eyes. “I wasn’t…..I don’t remember that.”

“I am not surprised, Charity. You were a mess! I had to have him stay here the night before I went on my course. You were so drunk I’m not even sure you were aware that I had him.”

Charity frowns. “Why wasn’t he with Ross?”

“Ross had some kind of funny turn and Moses was just found wandering around the village.”

“What?” 

The thought of her little boy wandering around on his own makes her feel sick. Someone could have taken him. He could have been run over or walked into the stream.

“Was he ok?”

Vanessa runs a hand through her hair. “Yes, he was fine. He thought it was all an adventure, so no harm done.”

“I need to say sorry to him.”

“You need to say sorry to a lot of people, Charity. I know you are hurting, and you are struggling to cope, but the way you spoke to people was awful. First things first though, you need to apologise to Noah and Moses. Noah especially as he was terrified when you didn’t come home last night. He woke me up at six this morning when he realised you hadn’t been home.”

A tear slips down her cheek. “I am just like him. My dad.”

Vanessa grabs her hands. “You are not like him, Charity. You hit a hard patch, you were struggling to cope, but you have come out on the other side. You just have to promise to not turn to alcohol to self-medicate again.”

Charity nods. “I promise.”

“And don’t you ever disappear on me like that,” Vanessa says, her voice shakes as she rubs her thumbs across Charity’s knuckles. “I was so scared when I realised you hadn’t gone home. I felt bad enough for going to that conference as it was. Then when I got home I debated about whether I should come and see you, but it was half twelve and I thought you would be asleep.”

“I’m sorry, Ness. It just got all a bit too much. The Dingle court was bad enough. Then I heard Cain say I would never change, and I just lost it. I mean, why did they even bother with the court if they thought it was going to be such a waste of time.”

Vanessa kisses Charity’s forehead. “I am still angry they did that. What a ridiculous thing to do. Dingle court,” Vanessa scoffs. “Has it ever worked before?”

Charity laughs. “No. To be fair we haven’t held many of them. The last time we needed one Zak took matters into his own hands and nearly killed Cain.”

Vanessa’s eyes widen. “No way!”

“Yes way! Thank god he didn’t try that this time.”

Vanessa’s grip on her hands tightens. “Not a chance. I will destroy anyone who tries to even dare hurt you.”

Charity bites back a laugh. Vanessa may seem like a little wallflower, but she is anything but. Seeing her so feisty always tickles Charity. She can’t imagine Vanessa taking on the likes of Zak or Cain in a fight, but she also knows if she had to then she would. 

“I know, babe.”

Vanessa releases Charity’s hands and wraps her right arm around Charity’s shoulder. They lie back on the sofa together and Vanessa softly runs her fingers through Charity’s hair. 

“I can’t believe you passed out in a field! That is so dangerous.”

“Well, it was. I nearly got ran over by a combine harvester, didn’t I.”

Charity regrets saying the second the words come out of her mouth. Vanessa’s whole-body tenses and her hand stops its gentle strokes through Charity’s hair. 

She is in for it now.

“You nearly what?”

“Nothing.”

Vanessa gently pushes Charity away. Her expression is a mixture of angry and scared and Charity feels like crap for being the one who has put them there. 

“You nearly got ran over!”

“But I didn’t, babe, I am fine.”

“But you might not have been! Charity, you could have been killed. You could have—”

Charity gently cups Vanessa’s face in her hands. “Hey, hey, Vanessa, I am fine, ok? I wasn’t hurt or killed. I am fine.”

A tear slips down Vanessa’s cheek and Charity gently brushes it away. It reminds her of when Vanessa did the same thing with her, just before she told her about Bails. 

“God, Charity. I don’t know what I would do if anything ever happened to you.”

Charity smiles and leans forward, placing her lips gently against Vanessa’s. She pulls away and catches the next tear that falls with her lips. Gently kissing her away across Vanessa’s cheek, down her nose and then back to her mouth. 

“And I don’t know what I would do if anything ever happened to you. So how about we both try and stay safe. Oh, and avoid heavy farming machinery.”

Vanessa scowls at her.

“Too soon?”

That draws a small laugh out of her girlfriend. 

Vanessa grips Charity’s wrists as she says. “Deal. Now, how about we go and get Moses and Noah and take them out for tea? They both could do with some time with you.”

“What about Johnny?”

“Tracey has him. He won’t be back until bedtime.”

Charity smiles. “Ok then.”

They quickly grab their coats and their bags. They are just about to leave the house when Vanessa stops suddenly. “Anything else you want to tell me about? Any other dangerous situations you got yourself into?”

Charity shakes her head. She isn't going to tell Vanessa she decked the farmer. No way in hell. 

“No, babe.”

Vanessa smiles. “Then let’s go.”

11/01/19- Hotten General Hospital 

“Only you could nearly get run over by a bloody tractor, Charity,” Tracey laughs. 

“Combine Harvester,” Rhona says, correcting her best friends sometimes dopey little sister. 

“Same thing.”

Charity snorts. “It isn’t, babe.”

“Wasn’t that night the night you told her you loved her for the first time?” Rhona asks. 

“No. It was two days after. The day after I saw my dad again.”

“Why then?” Tracey asks, genuinely curious. She believed they had said those words long before they had. Anyone who looks at them can see how crazy they are about each other. She can't remember a time when they weren't giving each other soppy looks.

Charity looks over at Vanessa. She remembers that day so clearly, how shocked Vanessa looked when she told her just how much she loved her. Stupidly and completely. The tears in Vanessa’s eyes as she said the words back will always stick with Charity. No one has ever loved her in the way Vanessa does, in that just hearing those words and saying them back brings them to tears.

 

Vanessa still gets teary eyed even now when Charity says it. Especially if it is unexpected. Like the other day. They were sat watching TV and Vanessa was giggling away at a character on one of the comedy programmes she likes. The sound of her happy little laugh had Charity’s heart bursting with love. So much so that she whispered the words softly in Vanessa’s ear. Vanessa then started to cry happy little tears and said it back, repeatedly before dragging Charity upstairs.

Charity also had never known someone get so turned on by those three little words either. If ever Charity needed Vanessa, which was nearly all the time, and she wasn’t around, she would just send her a little text with those three words and Vanessa, like magic, would appear five minutes later, dragging her off upstairs, into the cellar, into the backroom, even into the customer toilets one day. 

“I waited until them to say them because I finally felt free. Bails is in jail. I had Ryan back and I finally shifted the blame from my shoulders onto my Dads. My past wasn’t holding me down anymore. I could, for the first time in my life, give myself to someone fully. Give them all of me instead of holding a bit of myself back. I didn’t need to protect myself anymore. All of my demons seemed to have vanished. None of which would have happened if it wasn’t for her. So I wanted to wait until my heart and mind could fully be hers.”

Rhona clears her throat. “Wow…..She…..Wow, Charity. That may be one of the sweetest things I have ever heard.”

Charity rolls her eyes. “I doubt it.”

“She was so happy, you know, when you told her you loved her. So happy.”

Charity nods in agreement with Tracey. “I know. That night in bed she kept making me say it,” Charity remembers with a laugh. “Not that I cared. I loved saying it. Of course, she had to know when I realised I loved her, didn't she.”

“When did you realise? At one point did you look at my sister and think, I love this woman?”

“Well, it wasn’t just one moment as such, but rather quite a few.”


	14. Fourteen

“When did you realise? At one point did you look at my sister and think, I love this woman?”

“Well, it wasn’t just one moment as such, but rather quite a few.”

 

27/09/18- Tug Ghyll

 

Charity wraps her dressing gown tighter around her body as she slowly creeps down Vanessa’s stairs. She is parched and in desperate need of a glass of water. She quickly makes her way towards the sink, grabbing two clean glasses and filling them up with water. She takes a gulp of hers as she looks around the living room. The light from the street lamp outside illuminating the room enough for her to see the carnage they left it in.

Johnny and Moses’s toys are still out on the floor in front of the TV. Four empty pizza boxes sit on the kitchen table, where they had been left after being devoured. Another pang of guilt sweeps through her as she thinks about why they had to buy the pizza. She can’t believe what she did to Vanessa’s lasagne. Vanessa really had slaved over their dinner, putting so much effort into making everything perfect, and Charity’s only thanks was to throw it in the bin. She has already ordered Vanessa a new dish. The one with the lasagne in broke as she threw it into the bin.

After all that, after Charity ruined their dinner, nearly ruining their night, Vanessa still, unbelievably forgave her. Vanessa, her perfect, amazing Vanessa, still spent the night laughing with Charity and the boys, holding Charity’s hand and giving her reassuring smiles as Charity tried to heal the damage she has caused in her relationships with her children.

Charity had sat and watched Vanessa with the boys all night. Watching how easily she laughed with them and they with her. She watched as Vanessa and Noah debated what players should start in Leeds next football game. She watched as she gave Ryan her complete attention as he told her about a project he had at work. She watched as she made sure everyone had everything they needed when they started to eat their dinner before she would even sit down and start eating her own. The smaller boys hadn’t wanted to sit at the table and eat, so Vanessa set them up with a plate each with two slices of pizza on. She sat them down on the floor and gave them a few toys to play with whilst they ate, telling them they had to eat their food as well as play or they would be back at the table.

Noah spilt his drink. Ryan dropped his pizza. Moses and Johnny fought over a toy, and then over whose plate was whose, and Vanessa just dealt with it all, with all the chaos, like it was nothing. She didn’t lose her temper or get stressed out. She just breezed through it all with a smile on her face.

She didn’t lose her temper with Charity either. If their roles were reversed and Vanessa had thrown Charity’s dinner in the bin like that then she would have been out on her ear. Vanessa knew the reason why she had done it, even before Charity told her she lost it because they boys hadn’t turned up and she just wanted the night to be perfect. Vanessa always knew why Charity was losing her temper. She knew why Charity was hurting. She knew how to deal with the chaos Charity brought to their relationship and when she was in that kind of mood, and she dealt with it.

Charity smiles as she thinks about their conversation after dinner. She hadn’t planned on telling Vanessa tonight that she is in love with her. After seeing her dad the day before Charity knew she had to tell her girlfriend just how she felt. Seeing him again reminded her that no one has ever been there for her like Vanessa. Just like her dad, everyone else in her life has turned their back on her at one point. Some more than once.

But not Vanessa.

After the lasagne incident Charity expected Vanessa to kick her to the curb. Others have done for things not half as bad as that.

But not Vanessa.

She embraces every part of Charity’s complex personality. The good, the bad, the vindictive, the childish, and sometimes the evil. She might not like all sides of Charity’s personality, but she hasn’t tried to change her.

After seeing her dad she came up with a plan to take Vanessa out for a romantic dinner to tell her how she feels. But after watching Vanessa deal with the utter chaos that is Charity’s life she just couldn’t hold back.

The look of pure disbelief and then happiness that was on Vanessa’s face as Charity said those words to her is something that will live with Charity forever. The feeling of utter relief as Vanessa said those words back will live with Charity forever, too. She can’t ever remember wanting to hear someone say those words to her as much as she wanted to hear Vanessa say them.

“Charity, are you ok?” Vanessa whispers down the stairs.

“Yeah, babe, I am just coming back up.”

Charity refills her drink and grabs the glass she filled up for Vanessa. After Ryan left and all the boys went to bed, including Noah who claimed he couldn’t be bothered to walk back to the pub, they left the mess downstairs and quickly went up to Vanessa’s bedroom for some adult time.

Desire runs down Charity’s spine as she thinks back on the love making that followed. It was passionate, slow, sensual, tender, fun, and the most beautiful sexual experience of Charity’s life. With their feelings completely out in the open there was nothing left to hide now. Every touch, kiss, caress, whisper, and moan screamed ‘I love you’ and Charity couldn’t get enough of it. They were unable to stop touching each other and had been at it for hours.

Charity walks slowly back up the stairs, creeping slowly past Johnny’s room and the spare room where Noah is sleeping so she doesn’t wake up the boys. She walks into Vanessa’s room, the soft glow from Vanessa’s bedside lamp lighting up the room enough for her to see where she is going.

They always have sex with the light on. They are both adamant about it. Vanessa likes to have it on so she can see charity’s face. Charity likes it for the same reason, and because Vanessa has a killer body that she just can’t get enough of. They have never hidden their bodies from each other. Neither of them are shy. That was something that surprised Charity about Vanessa the first time they’d slept together. She always thought Vanessa was prim, proper and boring, so she expected the other woman to insist on the light being off and having sex under the quilt. Instead Vanessa had turned Charity’s light on and ripped both of their clothes off. Vanessa also had a great saying that Charity freaking loved.

“No one has great sex underneath the covers.”

“Sorry, babe, I was having a moment,” Charity says as she passes Vanessa her glass of water. She places hers on the bedside table on her side of the bed before she shrugs off her dressings gown.

Vanessa gives her a low wolf whistle and Charity grins.

“Like what you see, babe?”

Vanessa licks her lips, her eyes landing on Charity’s breast. “You know I do.”

Charity smirks and climbs into bed next to Vanessa. She pulls the quilt up to her lap and leans back against the pillows with a happy sigh as she closes her eyes. She feels Vanessa shift beside her. Vanessa places a series of kisses along Charity’s shoulder before she bites gently on Charity’s ear.

“Having a moment?”

Charity laughs, she should have known that comment wouldn’t have gone unnoticed.

“Yeah. I was just looking around the living room. Thinking back on tonight and how different it went to what we had planned. But it was perfect. In the end, it was perfect.”

“Well, nothing really goes to plan with you, does it.”

There is a softness to Vanessa’s words. Another thing Vanessa has learnt to deal with since she has been with Charity. Expect the unexpected.

“Life would be boring if it did, wouldn’t it.”

Vanessa laughs and places a soft kiss on Charity’s cheek. She rests her cheek on Charity’s shoulder and reaches for Charity’s hand. She entwins their fingers and lets out a happy little sigh.

“How did you really want tonight to go?”

“I wanted a nice dinner with the boys. A bit of a laugh and some banter around the table. I thought we could crash out in front of the tv afterwards and just…..be together.”

“I liked the night we had better.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean, your original plan sounds lovely, but tonight was so much more fun. Going with the flow is a lot better than sticking to a plan. I have always thought that.”

Charity rests her head against Vanessa’s. “Yeah, I suppose so. Mainly because none of my plans go as they are supposed to anyway. I don’t know why I bother planning things. It always goes tits up.”

Vanessa snorts. “Very true. So, you weren’t planning on admitting you love me, stupidly and completely tonight then?”

“No. I was going to make it romantic. I didn’t plan on telling you after I threw away your dinner and my kids had trashed your house.”

Vanessa leans back and looks Charity in the eyes. The tenderness, passion and love that Charity can see shining out of the beautiful blue eyes she adores takes her breath away. No one has ever looked at her like that. Many have said they loved her. Many have said they would do anything for her and she was the best thing in the world. But no one has looked at her like Vanessa is right now.

“It was perfect. Unexpected, but perfect.”

Charity kisses Vanessa’s nose and it twitches in response.

“I couldn’t help myself, babe. You were amazing, as always. Dealing with me and my strop. Dealing with the boys and their wants and needs like it was nothing. Like…..Like they are yours and not mine.”

Vanessa’s grip on her hand tightens. “I…..They are yours. They mean the world to me. I would do anything for them. Just like I would for you.”

Love rushes through Charity and she can’t help but press her lips against the smaller woman’s. Vanessa giggles as Charity flips them over so she is lying on top of Vanessa. Charity sighs as Vanessa deepens the kiss. Their tongues playfully fight for dominance as Charity uses her knee to gently encourage Vanessa to open her legs.

Charity rocks her hips into Vanessa, once, twice, three, four times, electing a delicious moan from the woman underneath her. God, she loves this woman. She loves everything about her. One of her favourite things though has got to be how responsive she is in bed. Vanessa gives and takes as equally as Charity does.

Charity starts placing kisses on Vanessa’s neck, aiming for her most sensitive spots. She smirks against Vanessa’s skin as Vanessa grinds her hips into Charity’s and whimpers. Vanessa runs her hands slowly down Charity’s back, digging her nails in when Charity nips at her pulse point.

“Charity?”

“Yes, babe.”

“When did you know?”

Charity stops her assault on Vanessa’s neck and leans back. “Know what?”

“That you love me.”

Charity drops her forehead onto Vanessa’s chest. She lets out a little laugh and kisses Vanessa’s chest before mumbling, “You want to have this conversation now? I was planning on giving you another wonderous orgasm. Or two.”

Vanessa grasps Charity’s cheeks and gently encourages her to look at her. “Yes. You can give me an orgasm afterwards. I want to know, Charity.”

“Why?”

Vanessa twirls a strand of Charity’s hair between her finger tips, suddenly looking nervous. “Because I have spent months trying to stop myself saying how much I love you. I constantly tried to spot signs that you felt the same. Some days I was convinced you did, and then others you were more closed off and I would become unsure again.”

Charity lays her hands on Vanessa’s chest, resting her chin on them so they are nose to nose.

“I’m sorry, babe.”

“I wasn’t looking for an apology, Charity. Darling, I know you were going through a tough time.”

“I know, but I wasn’t always the nicest person to be around. I used you as an emotional punching bag and it wasn’t fair.”

“What you had to go through, twenty-eight-years ago wasn’t fair. Besides, I rather enjoyed it when you apologised in your very special Charity way.”

Charity smirks as she recalls a few of her special apologies. They normally consisted of Charity taking Vanessa up against the nearest surface and apologising to her amazing girlfriend as she brought her to the edge and then sent her over it, repeatedly.

“How about we reminisce on some of those times now aye, babe?”

Vanessa shakes her head, her expression serious. “No. I want to know.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Don’t you?”

Charity shrugs. “Not really.”

Vanessa narrows her eyes and Charity knows that was the wrong answer. Charity herself isn’t much of a romantic. She doesn’t do flowers, or soppy films. It takes her hours to work out where to take Vanessa and what to do with her when she fancies trying to be romantic by planning a night out. Only when the mood strikes her of course. Not that she is sure why she bothers trying to come up with anything when her idea of a romantic night out is always the same. Food, drink, sex. Not that Vanessa has ever complained.

Vanessa however is the most romantic person Charity knows. She loves soppy films, she loves candle lit dinners and romantic walks down by the stream. Charity swears she even gets teary eyed when she buys herself flowers! Vanessa loves all that hearts and flowers crap. She loves love. She cried the other day when she heard about two gay penguins living together as a couple at London Zoo.

Charity knows she needs to try harder to be more romantic. Not because she wants to or feels like she has to, but because the smile it puts on Vanessa’s face is so worth it.

“Ok, babe, when did you realise you loved me?”

“Nope, your first. I’m not having you copying my answers.”

“Copying your…..what is this, a test?”

Vanessa laughs, and Charity feels the vibration of it go through body. She loves being this close to Vanessa. Skin to skin. Nothing in between them.

“You first, Charity.”

Charity rolls her eyes. “Ok……wait, loved or liked?”

Vanessa grins. “Both. Actually. Like, really like and love. Those moments, when you knew.”

Charity exaggerates her sigh. “Ok. So I first realised I liked you when I thought I had screwed it up. You might have noticed that though, I did chase you half way around the village for days on end. Really liked, well that was when you went to the gay bar. I thought you were going to pull, and it scared me half to death. And love……..Babe, can I get back to you on that?”

Vanessa starts to twirl Charity’s hair around her fingers again. “Ok.”

“Thanks. So, your turn. Remember, no copying.”

Vanessa laughs. “Ok. So I realised I liked you after our second time together. I realised I really liked you when you had a go at Veronica, defending me. I realised I loved you when you stuck the moustache on my face.”

Charity tenses. “That long? You have been in love with me for that long?”

Vanessa blushes. “Yes.”

“Babe, why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because I knew you weren’t there yet. And then not long after everything started to happen with Bails. I didn’t want you to think I was just saying it because I felt sorry for you, or I thought it was what you wanted to hear.”

Charity kisses Vanessa softly. “Babe, I would have known you weren’t just saying it.”

Vanessa pulls a face. “I find that hard to believe considering tonight you asked me if I was just saying it because you had.”

Charity laughs, she has a point there. “I know. But I would have believed you.”

Vanessa smiles as she tuts. “I wish I would have known that. I have spent months biting my tongue, holding myself back from screaming it from the rooftops.”

“Well, you certainly screamed it a few times tonight, babe.”

Vanessa clamps her hand over her mouth. “You don’t think Noah heard us, do you?”

“Nah, once he is asleep a herd of Elephants jumping on his bed playing trumpets couldn’t wake him.”

Vanessa giggles at the image.

“Ok, so now it is your turn, Charity. When did you realise that really, really stupidly and completely love me?”

Charity looks deep into the blue eyes that captured her attention right from the start. She thinks back to the day that she realised she was in love with Vanessa. The rush that went through her body. How her heart skipped a beat as it dawned on her that her feelings for Vanessa were more than ‘I flaming well like you to’.

“It hit me one day. Out of the blue. I was on my own in pub. It was dead, and I was reading a magazine. I remember you had just text me saying you were gutted that we couldn’t see each other that night. I was gutted to. I stood by the bar reading this magazine, moping about because I couldn’t see you, and there was this article about love. I skimmed through most of it, but one quote stood out. As I read it I realised it was you. How I felt about you.”

Vanessa clears her through before asking, “What did the quote say?”

“It was a long one. The first bit said. ‘Love creeps up on you slowly. Like the sun coming over the horizon. One minute it isn’t there and then the next your world is full of colour. The stronger the love gets, like when the sun climbs higher into the morning, the more your world fills with colour.’ I remember thinking about you in that moment, how you came into my life out of nowhere, bringing all these crazy feelings with you. And colour, a lot of it. Especially yellow.”

Charity kisses Vanessa before continuing. “The second part said. ‘And with it, love brings laughter. The more you love the more you laugh.’ I have never laughed with anyone as mush as I have with you, Vanessa.”

“The third part said, ‘And hope. Love brings hope. Hope for a better life. Hope for a bigger future. Hope for happiness and fulfilment.’ We hadn’t been together officially for all that long, but I knew I wanted a future with you. I was looking forward to all the plans we were going to make.”

“And the fourth…..the fourth part said, ‘And with love, with true love, brings full trust. You will never trust anyone as much as you trust the one you truly love. You will trust them with your darkest secret. A secret you have never trusted anyone with. When you hand over that trust, that is when you know you have found your love.’”

Charity slowly swallows and takes a deep breath. “I read that magazine the week after I first told you about Bails. A week after I gave you my full trust, and my love.”

Vanessa sobs and pulls Charity to her. She kisses her with a passion that Charity knows she will never get used to. A passion that Charity has never felt before. With a passion you can only truly feel when kissing your one true love. Your soulmate.

 

 

11/01/19- Hotten General Hospital

“Wow, Charity, I think I am a little bit in love with you, too.”

Rhona and Charity both laugh at Tracey.

“Well, sorry, babe, but my heart is already taken.”

“You really love her, don’t you?” Rhona asks.

Charity doesn’t blame her girlfriend best friend for being sceptical. Heaven knows Charity has faked loving people enough times in her life. Rhona wasn’t even around for some of those times, but in Emmerdale people love to gossip. Even if that gossip is nearly twenty years old.

“I do. I really do. I know you guys might not think the best of me. I can’t say I blame you for that. But she is my…..she is my life. I can’t imagine not having her in my life. She is the best thing, aside from my kids, that has ever happened to me.”

Vanessa’s heart rate monitor skips a beat. They all look at Vanessa, waiting for something to happen.

"I wonder what that was about," Charity says.

“She can hear you,” Tracey says, her voice wobbling as she fights back tears.

Charity gently squeezes Vanessa’s hand, trying not to get too disappointed when she doesn’t squeeze back.

“Can you hear me, babe?”

She gets no response from Vanessa or her heart rate monitor.

“Might have been a blip,” Rhona says. “It can happen.”

Charity knows in her gut it was Vanessa’s heart responding to what she was saying. She often lay her head on Vanessa’s chest and whispered those three words, and she always feels Vanessa’s heart skip a beat as she did.

“It was her. Watch this.”

Charity stands up and gently places her hand across Vanessa’s chest. She can feel Vanessa’s heart beating underneath her hand, and she thanks her lucky stars that she is able to.  Thankful that her girlfriend wasn’t cruelly ripped away from her. She silently promises to never take Vanessa, or her kind, strong heart for granted ever again.

Charity kisses Vanessa’s nose before placing kisses across her cheek, stopping by her ear.

“I love you, Vanessa, more than anything.”

She feels it and hears it. Vanessa’s heart skips a beat again and Tracey and Rhona gasp.

“See, she can hear me. She’s just not ready to open those beautiful eyes yet.”

Tracey wipes away a tear. “I think you two might be my favourite love story.”

Charity sits back down with a laugh. “Gee, thanks, Trace.”

“So, how has everything been since then? Bliss?” Rhona asks.

“Pretty much. Aside from the whole Ross trying to take Moses thing. That was a hard time. I was pretty mean to her to be honest.”

“How and why were you horrible to her?” Tracey asks.

“Well, I misunderstood what she said and lost it a bit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had to upload two chapter today because I won’t be able to tomorrow night...Might be watching a emmerdale on repeat instead ;)


	15. Fifteen

“How and why were you horrible to her?”

“Well, I misunderstood what she said and lost it a bit.”

 

31/10/19- The Woolpack

 

Charity groans as she sits down at the kitchen table. She sips her tea as she stares at her laptop screen. Finding out that Ross and Rebecca are leaving the village and planning on taking Moses and Seb with has been a shock to say the least. She thought it would all blow over originally, but they have an apartment and Ross has managed to get himself a job with his friend. They are deadly serious about leaving and serious about taking the boys with them too.

Suggesting Robert and Aaron let them take Seb wasn’t the best idea she’s ever had. Not surprisingly they hadn’t agreed to the idea. Instead suggesting she let them take Moses, so they could keep Seb with them. It was all a mess and she had no idea what to do. Ross and Rebecca had then come over and Charity had hoped they could come to an agreement, but no, of course not. They said they would take it to court. They are adamant they are not moving to Liverpool without their little boys.

Ross as usual made a dig about her parenting skills, saying she’s an unfit mother who barely takes an interest in Moses and reminding her how happy she is to palm him off to everyone who will have him. She can’t deny that Ross’s word don’t ring true. She hasn’t always been the best mum to Moses. The fact that everyone says she just gave him to Debbie when he was born stings. She was in prison, she could hardly bring a baby up in there.

When she came out of prison, she knows she could have been a better mum to him. Everyone thinks she tried to sell him, which was half the plan. She wasn’t going to sell him but rather get the money and then tell Emma to sod off. It hadn’t been her best plan and of course it backfired spectacularly when everyone found out. As is the norm for Charity and her plans.

She has him regularly though. It wasn’t like she never saw him. Ross has him four days a week and she has him three days a week. She will sometimes have him over for dinner on Ross’s days if Ross can’t have him. Ross says she doesn’t help out at all, but she buys his clothes, his shoes, his toys, she pays his nursery fee.

Aside from the materialistic and money side of things she fully commits herself to him when she has him. Yes, she may occasionally have to have someone else look after him, but her life is so chaotic that at times it is best if he is with someone else. Someone safe. She would never let just anyone look after him. She would never ask Frank or Megan to look after him, or someone he doesn't really know. Sammy and Lydia normally have him when she really needs them to, and he loves staying with them.

He is her little boy and she loves him. She loves his smile, his laugh, his little voice. She misses him when he isn’t with her. She misses his constant chatter about anything and everything. He flips from one topic of conversation to another so fast sometimes it could give her whiplash. She loves how he runs into her bedroom and climbs into bed with her for a morning snuggle as he calls it. She loves how indecisive he is about what he wants for breakfast, before then choosing the same thing he has every day. She loves how he plays with her hair when he is tired, how he loves animals and cars, how much he loves to dance and singalong to music, how much he loves his siblings.

He told her the other day that she is the funniest person in the world. He has just started saying ‘I love you, Mummy’ all the time, without having it said to him first. He has started to get more independent, insisting on doing everything from brushing his teeth to putting shampoo in his hair himself. He is reaching all his milestones and he is thriving. If he goes with Ross then she will probably only see him every two weeks and the thought alone simply breaks her heart. She misses him when he is just staying over the road. She has no idea how she will cope if he moves that far away. It isn’t just down the road either. Liverpool is nearly two and a half hours away. What if something happens to him and she can’t get to him? He was poorly the other week and Ross ended up having to bring him around at two-am because he only wanted her.

She may not be the best mum, but she is his mum. She loves him more than life itself and he loves her. She will be damned if anyone takes him away from her. She has fought for Debbie many times, she’s fought for Noah and Ryan, and now she is going to fight for Moses. Ross will have to prize him out of her cold dead hands. That is the only way she is going to let him go.

The living room door opens and Vanessa’s head peaks round it. Charity smiles at her girlfriend.

“Hey, babe.”

“Hey. I hope you don’t mind me coming round at this time?”

Charity looks up at the clock on the wall. Ten pm. Where has the day gone. It only felt like five minutes ago she put Moses to bed. Has she seriously been sat staring at her laptop screen for nearly two hours?

“No course not, babe. Is everything ok?”

Vanessa takes off her denim jacket and throws it on to the back of the sofa. She is wearing the white flowery top that Charity really likes.

“I was coming to ask you the same question.”

Vanessa walks over to Charity and kisses her on the head. Vanessa stills as she looks at the laptop screen

“Solicitors?”

Charity picks up her tea and looks at the screen again. She has been going through the different family law firms since she put Moses to bed. They all, of course, promise the best results. She really has no idea where to start.

“Yeah. Ross and Rebecca say they will go to court to get custody of the boys.”

“Seriously? I thought this would have all died down by now.”

Charity has been keeping Vanessa updated on the situation via texts and a quick phone call. Her girlfriend has been tied up with work and a party for one of Johnny’s friends all day, so Charity didn’t want to keep bothering her. The last message she sent to Vanessa was ‘I have no idea how this is all going to pan out babe’.

“Oh no they are seriously moving to Liverpool. They have a two bedroom flat and Ross has a job at a garage.”

Vanessa frowns. “I don’t mean to sound rude or mean, but how is Rebecca supposed to look after Seb full time?” She clamps her hand over her mouth and her eyes widen. “That was horrible.”

“No, babe, it is true. I like Rebecca, but she isn’t capable of looking after Seb safely.”

“Well, surely she will see that.”

“She has, which is why she is hiring a nanny.”

Vanessa shifts in her seat as she points at the screen. “So, this is the next step yeah? Hiring a solicitor?”

“They have said they’re going to take it to court, so yeah.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want?”

Charity shakes her head in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Well, court is messy and expensive. You’ve dealt with that enough. Are you sure you don’t want to just give it a miss and—”

“And what, Vanessa? Let them take my little boy?” Charity shakes her head in disbelief as she stands up and moves towards the kitchen. “I know I am not Mum of the year, but I thought you of all people would understand and have my back on this.”

“I do!” Vanessa stands up and walks towards Charity. “I was trying to say—”

“I know what you were trying to say, Vanessa. Let them take him and become an every other weekend mum.” Charity laughs but there is no humour in it. “That would suit you down to the ground wouldn’t it. We would be able to see each other more if I didn’t have Moses. You said so the other day when I couldn’t come to yours because had him how frustrating it is. You would probably encourage me to convince them to take Noah as well, seeing as he is a problem for you too.”

Vanessa looks at Charity like she has just slapped her. “You can’t be serious right now?”

“Oh I am. It isn’t the first time you’ve sighed or moaned because I couldn’t come to yours because I had him. You can come here you know.”

Vanessa takes a deep shaky breath as she turns and walks towards the sofa. She grabs her jacket and Charity watches as she shoves her arms into it. Her body is tense, and her jaw muscle is twitching. She is angry. Charity has pissed her off and right now she couldn’t care less.

How dare she suggest that Charity just give the court route a miss. She would fight tooth and nail for her little boy. She doesn’t care how expensive it is. She didn’t even care about what she has been through this year. Moses was her little boy, her son, and she wasn’t going to let his father just ride off into the sunset with him. She wasn’t going to let another woman spend more time with him and get to watch him grow up more than she would. Hell would have to freeze over before she lets that happen.

Once Vanessa has her jacket on she looks up and her eyes meet Charity’s. They are red, as if she is holding back tears, and that does make Charity feel guilty.

“I wasn’t going to suggest you skipped court, Charity. If you let me finish a goddamn sentence for once, you would have heard me suggest some kind of mediation instead. An agreement drawn up outside of court.” Vanessa takes a deep breath before carrying on. “And I don’t get frustrated because you have him. I get frustrated because I can’t see you. There have been many a time when I couldn’t come here because of Johnny. Do you think I want rid of him too?”

Charity shuffles on her feet. Guilt hits her and she immediately wishes she could take back everything she just said. As per usual she let her mouth run away with her. Vanessa usually tolerated it, but obviously she has gone a bit too far this time. That scares her. She doesn’t know how far Vanessa will let her go before she leaves and doesn’t come back. She prays to god she hasn’t just found out.

“Of course not, babe I—”

“I haven’t finished, Charity!”

Vanessa angrily wipes away a tear that has fallen down her cheek. Charity wants to go over there and kiss all her tears away as she apologises again and again, but she knows Vanessa will just push her away. She thought she had seen Vanessa as mad as she ever would when she told the pub about Graham and Megan, but she was wrong.

“How dare you suggest that your kids are a problem for me. I adore them! I message Debbie nearly all the time. I speak to Ryan a few times a week. Noah I……I think he is a great kid, and yeah, we struggled to build a relationship, but that wasn’t because we didn’t like each other. He held me at arm’s length because he didn’t want to get hurt again, in case we broke up. You said that yourself. We get on well now. He comes to mine as much as you do now. Who did he stay with when you got yourself locked up for the night? And who was happy to let him stay? Me!”

Charity takes a step forward and Vanessa takes a step back. She holds out her hand, signalling that Charity shouldn’t come any closer.

“And Moses….I adore that little boy. I love it when he stays over. I love staying over here and his little chatter in the mornings and how he can never decide what he wants for breakfast, even though he always has toast and bananas……They are your children, Charity, and I accept them just like you accept Johnny.”

“Babe, I know. I’m sorry. I just—”

“What, lashed out at me, again, before letting me speak…..Shock!” Vanessa shakes her head. “I was also going to say you do what you think is best, Charity, for you and Moses, I will stand by your side and fight with you. Now I’m not sure that’s even what you will want considering you don’t think I even like your kids.” Vanessa grabs her handbag. “I’ll see you later.”

Before Charity even registers Vanessa’s words she has stormed out of the living room and out of the backdoor.

“Vanessa! Wait!”

Charity runs through the living room and opens the living room door, running straight into Noah.

“Noah! You scared me. I need to go out. I need to go after—”

“Vanessa. Yeah, I heard.”

Noah looks disappointed in her, which isn’t a surprise, but he also looks upset.

“Why can’t you ever be nice?”

“Babe, I am under a lot of stress and I—”

“It is never your fault is it! I heard the whole thing. There was no way she was going to suggest that you let them take Moses. She would never do that. She is always saying how good a mum you are. Why she says that I don’t know.”

Charity gasps. “Noah!”

“But all of that aside, when has she never had your back?”

Charity doesn’t even have to think about that. “She always has my back.”

“Exactly. And Vanessa and I….we get on great now. You were right, she is different. And that means you should treat her differently. Stop expecting her to hurt you or go against you, Mum. Or you will push her away.”

Charity nods slowly. “I…..Everyone says I am a bad, Mum, Noah. My kids say it all the time, and you should know because well….you’re my kids. I guess I just expected her to say I should let them take Moses. Just like everyone else has been saying.”

“I haven’t said that,” Noah says with a frown. “Chas and Paddy haven’t said that. You aren’t the best mum in the world but you are far from the worst. And you love us. No matter how bad it gets, we will always know that.”

Tears fill her eyes as she looks at her boy. Her baby boy who has grown into a young man in a flash. She missed parts of his life because she was selfish, and she has let him down so many times. She can’t change that. She wishes she could, but she can’t.

“I do love you, all of you.”

Noah rolls his eyes. “I know. I just said that. You love Vanessa too, right?”

“Yes!”

“Then I think you need to go and grovel. Grovel like you never have before.”

Charity pokes his chest. “I was about to do that before you stood in my way.”

He grins. “Go. I will listen out for Moses. If you stay the night, I will get his breakfast sorted.”

She grabs his face and places a smacker on his cheek. He pulls away and immediately wipes at his cheek. “I hate it when you do that.”

She grins. “I know.”

Charity grabs her coat and puts it on at the same time she is running out the door. The village is quiet. Most of the residents are either in bed or in the pub. She runs straight across the carpark and cuts through the back of Bernice’s salon, then through Harriet and Pearl’s garden until she reaches Vanessa’s back door.

She can see the living room light shining underneath the blinds and she can see someone’s shadow moving around. Well, more throwing their weight around so she knows it is Vanessa.

She gently knocks on the backdoor and waits, quietly listening. She knocks again and smiles when she hears footsteps heading to the backdoor.

“Hello?”

“Tracey?”

“Charity, what do you want? What have you done to my sister?”

“Nothing…..Well, something. I want to see her. Can you let me in?”

“Can I let her in?” Tracey says to Vanessa. Charity can’t hear Vanessa, but Tracey asks if Vanessa is sure to whatever Vanessa says in response. “She said no. Go home and she will see you tomorrow.”

“No. Tracey, let me in.” Charity bangs the door a bit harder. “Vanessa, let me in!”

“She said no, Charity. You should respect her wishes.”

“Respect her….” Charity bangs again. “Vanessa!”

The kitchen light switches off and Charity hears Tracey shout, “Goodnight.”

Charity bangs a few more times before she shouts, “I will bang all night!”

“Oh, we know you will, love, but can you do it elsewhere.”

Charity jumps, scowling at Pearl. She is standing on her doorstep, looking like she is enjoying every moment of this. No doubt the whole village will know about this before they have had their morning cup of tea.

“Pearl! Do you have a key?”

“I do.”

Charity lets out a sigh of relief. “Can I have it. I have…..I need to see Vanessa.”

Pearl takes off her glasses and laughs. “Well, it doesn’t sound like she wants to see you. Leave her be until morning, Charity. I am sure she will forgive you. God knows why, but I am sure she will.”

If Pearl wasn’t an old lady Charity was confident she would give her a slap.

“Give me the key, Pearl.”

“Jog on, Charity.”

Pearl slams her backdoor and Charity groans. She needs to get in there. She needs to see Vanessa. She pulls out her phone and starts calling Vanessa. She must call her ten times before it just starts going to voicemail. Vanessa has turned her phone off. Charity slumps down on the back door step and thinks. She has no idea how long she sits there for, thinking about how to get into the house or at least how to get them to open the door without waking the whole village.

Why oh why haven’t they exchanged keys yet? They normally just walked into each other’s houses. Charity’s house was easily assessable because, well the pub was open for ten hours a day. Vanessa’s house was always open because they never locked the door when they were home! It drove Charity mad. They never locked the front door, and the living room window was……

She shoots up off the ground. The living room window latch was always undone. It bugged Charity no end. Two women living in a house with no men should be more careful when it came to security. She has a feeling thought that she is about to be very grateful about their lack of safety concerns right now. She can open the window and use the table Vanessa has underneath it to help her into the house.

She is a Dingle after all, breaking into things is what they do.

She races round to the front of Vanessa’s house. She pushes the gate open and runs up Vanessa’s path. She groans out loud and stomps her foot. She forgot about the thick bush that runs up the side of Vanessa’s path and sits in front of her window. Sod it, she will just have to climb through the bush too. She lifts her leg into the bush, biting back a yelp of pain as twigs poke and scrape at her legs. She forces her body through the thick bush, mentally reminding herself to get Vanessa to get this monstrosity cut down. She reaches with window and uses the light on her phone to check the latch is undone. It is so she reaches under the window and hooks her fingers underneath the base of the widow. She gives a sharp, upwards push.

It doesn’t budge.

She does it again and this time it moves enough for her to be able to grip the window with both of her hands. She uses all her strength to get the window open. No wonder they don’t pull the latch across. She honestly can’t see many burglars or serial killers putting this much effort into opening the damn thing.

She gets it open enough to squeeze her body through. She reaches in through the window so that she can move the blinds out of the way. Once she has done that, she goes in hands first, reaching out for the table. Her hands land on the table and she grins, putting her head through the gap. She thinks it will be ok resting all her weight on the table, but boy is she wrong.

She hears a crack, and then another one, before the table gives way underneath her and collapses on the floor. It takes her with it and she lands on the floor with a thud. The vase that was sat on the table smashes all over the floor. She winces, waiting for Johnny to wake up and start screaming or Vanessa and Tracey to run down the stairs but she hears nothing. She starts to push herself up off the floor. She tries to avoid the shards of broken glass from the vase. She hopes to god Vanessa doesn’t like that vase as much as she likes her bloody chair. There will be hell to pay if she does.

She stands up and brushes herself down. She turns and then screams as she comes face to face with two shadows. One holding up what looks like a hair brush and another holding a hairdryer.

“Charity!” Vanessa shouts. Vanessa reaches towards the light switch and turns it on.

Charity bites back a laugh at the sight of the two of them. They look scared half to death and she isn’t quite sure what they thought they thought they were going to do with a hairdryer and a hairbrush, but she can’t wait to find out.

“What the hell are you doing?” Tracey screeches. “We thought someone was trying to break in!”

“Technically I did just break in.” She points to the objects in their hands. “And what exactly were you planning on doing with those if someone was breaking in? Hairstyle them to death?”

“This isn’t funny, Charity,” Vanessa scolds. She walks around Charity and looks at the mess she has caused. Her hands go to her hips as she glares at her girlfriend. “Look at it!”

Charity sighs and runs her hand through her wild curls. “I am so sorry, Ness. Not just about this, but everything. What I said I—”

“Tracey, can you….can you give us a minute?”

Tracey nods. “Ok. But if I hear any shouting or screaming I will come right back down.”

Charity rolls her eyes as Tracey climbs back up the stairs. Tracey has always had a flare for the over dramatic. She looks back at Vanessa who has started to pick up the shards of glass. “Babe, leave it. I will do it. I’ll get a dustpan and brush.”

She reaches over and shuts the window before she runs over to the kitchen and grabs the dustpan and brush from underneath the sink. Vanessa has moved to the doorway and she watches silently as Charity clears up all the glass. Charity can feel Vanessa watching her. The silence is unnerving. Vanessa always has something to say. She often just chatters away, sometimes to herself. She is always chatting Charity’s ear off, right until the moment she falls asleep. She even talks a lot during sex!

Charity makes sure she has every shard of glass off the floor before she takes the dustpan to the bin and empties it. She puts the dustpan and brush back and then turns to face her girlfriend. Vanessa is still staring at her with her eyes narrowed. Charity clasps her hands together and wiggles them nervously.

“Babe, I am so sorry. About the table, the vase, what I said earlier….All of it.”

Vanessa crosses her arms across her chest. “I loved that vase. And that was a nice table.”

“I will buy you a new vase and I will get Sammy to fix up the table. Sammy can fix anything.”

Vanessa sighs. “Why did you say those things to me? Because honestly, I am so confused, Charity. I have been laying in bed trying to think back to a time when I may have given you the impression that I don’t care about your kids, or that I don’t like them. Or a time where I have suggested that I would prefer it if they weren’t there.” Vanessa rubs her own arms and her voice breaks as she says, “I can’t think of a time where I have acted like that and I hate that you feel that I do.”

Charity all but runs across the room to Vanessa. The hitch in Vanessa’s voice and the tears in her eyes is ripping at Charity’s heart. Vanessa is her world, the person she loves more than she has ever loved anyone, and she can’t stand the fact that she has caused her so much pain. Right this second she is convinced that she hates herself more than anyone else has ever hated her.

She wraps her arms around Vanessa. Vanessa doesn’t reciprocate but she doesn’t shove her off.

“Babe, no. No! I don’t think that. I never have.”

“Then why say it?” Vanessa mumbles against Charity’s coat.

“Because I am a mouthy cow who speaks before she thinks. And sometimes I use nasty words as a defence mechanism.”

Vanessa leans back and looks at Charity with confusion in her eyes. “But why would you need to have a defence mechanism against me? I would never say or do anything to hurt you.”

Charity rubs Vanessa’s arms and kisses her forehead. She leaves her mouth there as she says, “I know, Vanessa. I know that. I just….Everyone has basically said that he will be better off with Ross. I thought you were about to say the same thing.”

Vanessa gently kisses Charity’s neck. “I would never say that.”

“I know.”

Charity pulls back so she can see Vanessa. She is so beautiful, even with red, tear stung eyes and bed hair. She is the most beautiful person inside and out, and Charity needs her to know that. She doesn’t think she has needed to say the words she is about to say next more than she has right now.

“I love you, Vanessa. I love you so much than sometimes I can’t breathe because of it. I love your smile. Your laugh. Your eyes. Your mouth. Your hands. Your brain. Your bad jokes. Your constant need to hear your own voice. Your infectious excitement about anything to do with animals. But most of all I love how you are with my kids. I love how you make them laugh. I love how you make sure they are happy. I love how you always ask about them. I love how much you care about them. I love that Noah thinks you are funny, even though he would never admit it. I love that Debbie thinks you are the best partner I have ever had. I love that Ryan confides in you. I love that when you sleep over Moses will climb into bed and go and cuddle with you, not me. I love how much you love them and how much they love you.”

Vanessa lets out a sob before leaning up and kissing Charity. She pours her heart and soul into the kiss and Charity responds in kind. Charity has no idea how long they stand there for, mouths and tongues entwined, hands slowly roaming over familiar grounds.

Vanessa pulls away slowly. She places one last kiss on Charity’s lips before giving her a smile.

“You can’t half be romantic when you want to be, Miss Dingle.”

Charity wiggles her eyebrows. “I do try.” She sighs as she thinks about the evening they have just had. “I am so sorry, babe.”

Vanessa shushes Charity by placing her fingers over her lips. “Charity. I get why you said what you said. It still hurt but I get it. And I want you to know that whilst I understand why you lash out at times, I won’t be your emotional punching bag.”

“I don’t want you to be my emotional punching bag either. So, from now on if I start acting like that again you need to shout….Banana!”

Vanessa snorts out a laugh. “Banana?”

Charity smiles, glad to see Vanessa’s happy smile and laugh back. “Yeah! It will definitely stop me in my tracks.”

Vanessa giggles and kisses Charity’s nose. “Deal. And I will have your back through this. If this goes to court, then I will be right by your side. I will fight for Moses with you. I want him here with you, with us, as much as you do.”

Charity kisses her again, unable to help herself.

“Are you heading back home?” Vanessa asks as they break apart.

Charity pulls Vanessa’s body tighter against her own. “No. Noah said he will deal with Moses in the morning for me. He gave me a telling off. He heard it all. He was definitely on your side.”

Vanessa relaxes in Charity’s arms. “He is a good kid. A smart one, too,” she adds with a cheeky grin. “Oh, by the way. I hated that vase. It was here when I moved in and I’m not all that bothered about the table.”

Charity laughs. “I will still get Sam to fix it. It will give him something to do. I swear he just runs around and plays with the pigs all day.”

“He loves those pigs.”

“He does. By the way, have you got any plasters?”

Vanessa frowns. “Why?”

“Because I think it cut myself on the bush outside.”

Vanessa tuts good naturedly and grabs Charity’s hand. “Come on, cat burglar, let’s get you cleaned up.”

 

11/01/19-Hotten General Hospital.

“That’s what you argued about! When she came home all pissed off and upset, I asked what you had done but she said it was nothing. She is always trying to protect you, even when you don’t deserve it.”

Charity sighs. “I know she is. She’s my little defender. Hence why she is in here now.”

Rhona smiles. “That and she’s too feisty for her size.”

They all laugh at that.

“I can’t believe you broke in,” Rhona says. “Although, you would never know the table was broke. It looks great.”

Charity nods in agreement. Sammy did a great job on it.”

Rhona laughs and looks at Tracey. “I can’t believe that you took a hairdryer downstairs.”

Tracey huffs. “It was the closest thing to hand. We didn’t think it was going to be Charity. We thought you had left an hour before.”

“I sat on that doorstep for ages!”

Charity looks over at Vanessa and smiles. “She did have my back though. Thankfully it didn’t have to go to court and Ross and I have worked out an arrangement that has worked out well for all of us, including Moses. She was there with me the night before Ross left, helping me explain to Moses what was going on. She was great.”

“She is always great,” Tracey adds.

“She is. She is always there when I need her. Often when I don’t expect her to be. Like when I got arrested for pushing Kim over the stairs. She had my back. She believed I was innocent. Which I was, by the way.”

Rhona and Tracey both nod. Even if they thought she wasn’t they weren’t about to say so.

“She was telling anyone who would listen the next day that you are innocent. Bless her, she went to pick you up didn’t she?”

Charity laughs. “Yeah. She had to though. She was the reason they let me out, wasn’t she.”

Tracey and Rhona both stare at her, clueless as to what she is going on about.

“Why was she the reason you got let you?” Rhona asks.

“You mean she hasn’t told you? This all happened before the Moses and Ross thing. I thought she would have said something."

Tracey shakes her head. “She hasn’t told us what?”

“Well, Vanessa may have told a little white lie to get me out of there.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the comments and Kudos. They mean the world :)


	16. Sixteen

“She hasn’t told us what?”

“Well, Vanessa may have told a little white lie to get me out of jail.”

 

12/10/18- Hotten Police Station

“Wait, did you do this because you think I’m guilty?”

“No! The exact opposite. I know you’re innocent.”

"Good because I am and I didn’t do it….But, I think I know who did.”

“Who?” Vanessa asks with a frown.

Charity looks around, very conscious of the fact that they are stood outside the police station and anyone could be listening to them.

“Let’s talk on the way home, yeah. I am desperate to get out of this flaming dress.”

Vanessa nods and takes her hand, guiding her across to her car which is sat in the far corner of the carpark.

Charity grimaces as she climbs into Vanessa’s car. Her mouth tastes awful, she is starting to smell, and her feet are killing her from being stuck in her high heels all night. She waits for Vanessa to get into the driver’s seat, all the while thinking about everything that has happened over the past twenty-four hours.

She knew she shouldn’t have gone to that fundraiser. Yes she is Sarah’s granny and the event was for her, but there are plenty of other ways she can and has shown her support for Sarah. She didn’t need to watch the villagers get drunk and watch rich people flash their cash to show off more than to support the cause, to show her support for Sarah. She loves that kid and will do anything for her.

Vanessa gets in her side of the car shuts her door. “Look in the glove box.”

Charity does so and smiles when she sees a pack of mints and some deodorant in there. “Babe, you are a star.”

Vanessa grins. She looks so pleased with herself that Charity can’t resist giving her another kiss.

“I myself have never been arrested, so I wasn’t sure what they would give you. I couldn’t see hygiene being on top of their list however.”

Charity scoffs as she opens the mints. “It isn’t. They barely gave me anything to eat and drink. I swear they think that you will suddenly start singing like a canary if they deprive you of food and water.”

“Good thing I brought you some breakfast then, isn’t it.” Vanessa points to the back seat of the car where a McDonalds bag is sat.

Charity eagerly reaches behind her and grabs the bag. In the bag there is a double sausage and egg McMuffin and a hash brown. Charity groans as her mouth waters. She was offered luke warm tea and rock-hard toast for breakfast, which she rudely refused. She can’t remember the last time she had anything to eat. It was probably her lunch before the fundraiser.

Vanessa starts the car as Charity begins devouring her breakfast. They drive in silence for ten minutes; the radio is the only sound filling the car. A sign showing that Emmerdale is two miles away appears and Vanessa pulls over in to a lay by just passed it. She pulls up the handbrake and turns off the ignition. She turns slightly in her seat so her body is angled more towards Charity than the steering wheel.

She reaches over and twirls a lock of Charity's hair in between her fingers. “Are you ok? It must have been a rough night?”

Charity nods. “I’m used to being locked up overnight. Not the first time, and, babe, I have to warn you that it probably won’t be the last.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

Charity shoves her rubbish back into the McDonalds bag and chucks it on the backseat. “How’s Noah?”

Vanessa sighs. “He is fine. He is angry, and I mean angry. He stayed over mine last night.”

Charity raises her eyebrows. She expected him to go back to the pub, or at a push go to Cain and Moira’s. “He did?”

Vanessa lets out a little laugh. “It surprised me too. After you were carted off I asked him where he wanted to stay. I presumed he would stay at the pub, but he asked if he could stay at mine. He hasn’t gone to school though. He refused point-blank saying he wouldn’t be able to concentrate.”

“Fair enough. And Debbie, have you seen her?”

“I sent her a message. She said she is ok. She asked about you. It is just all such a mess. What started out as a lovely day ended up being the day from hell.”

Charity couldn’t agree more. Yesterday was a day she wouldn’t relive again, even if you paid her to. If Kim Tate coming back wasn’t enough, her daughter planning on getting married in secret, to then being stood up, to then finding out that the man she loves was lying to her again…….She just couldn’t wrap her head around it all.

She hates Joe. She hates him with a passion. These past few months she has tried to be nicer to him and put up with him for the sake of Noah, Debbie and the kids. She knew in her gut that he still couldn’t be trusted. She never wanted him around. She couldn’t even stand the sight of him most of the time. But she put all of that to one side for her kids, and look what has happened.

She should have mouthed off more. She should have never let Noah have a relationship with him. She should have made Debbie stay away. She should have done more to protect her kids from him. Yet again she has let them down.

“I knew he wasn’t to be trusted. Everyone else thought he was a changed man, but I knew in my gut that he was a still a lying, manipulative piece of scum. Do you think that’s why she didn’t invite me to the wedding, or even tell me about it?”

Vanessa looks out of the front window as she considers her answer. “I dunno…..Maybe. From what Faith was saying it was all very last minute. He just surprised her with the idea out of the blue. Faith thinks it is because he knew Kim was going to be released and he knew his cover would be blown. If they were married when that happened then it would be harder for Debbie to walk away.”

Charity grunts. “I would have dragged her away. Cain knew about it. I can’t believe he was just going to let her go ahead and do it. She walks all over him. I mean, she walks all over me most of the time. It’s the only way I can keep her happy, but with Cain she walks, skips, runs, jumps and dances all over him.”

“I have noticed.”

Vanessa reaches across the console and takes Charity’s hand in hers. “She loves you. Don’t think she didn’t invite you because she doesn’t love you, Charity.”

Charity sighs. “I know she does. She probably didn’t invite me because she knew I would make remarks throughout the whole thing.” She sighs and slams her head back against the head rest. “Why didn’t I listen to my gut instinct and get him away from them!”

Vanessa squeezes her hand, silently supporting her yet again. “Speaking of gut instincts, who do you think did it?”

Charity rolls her head to the side so she is looking at Vanessa. “Noah.”

Vanessa gasps. “Noah! Why do you think it was him?”

“Because he was the only one upstairs, yeah! I was in the loo few doors down from his room. Now, I have lived in that house twice. There is a floorboard near his room that creaks. It did when I lived there with Chris and it did when I lived there with Declan. No one has ever got it sorted. It always drove me mad. I remember tutting whilst I was sat on the loo because I heard it creak. I saw a shadow go past the loo, then I heard all the commotion, but I thought someone was just kicking off or something. I then saw the shadow run past the door, heading towards his room, and the floorboard creak again. Ness, it was him.”

“Are you positive?”

Charity nods slowly. “There was no one else upstairs, babe. Everyone would have seen them come up the stairs. Noah doing it is the only thing that fits with what happened.”

“There are the stairs in the office, right? Someone could have used those stairs. That would also fit with what happened. They would have had to walk past Noah’s room and the loo to get to the balcony, and then ran back again.”

Charity frowns. “How do you know the layout?”

“I helped Noah get his stuff together. The police let us. We had to use those stairs Charity, they wouldn’t let us down the main ones. Anyone could have snuck in and out of that office without anyone noticing.”

Charity rubs her forehead. “But no one has the motive, not like Noah. She has chased his brother out of town, apparently, and kicked him out. She spoke to him like he was something she trod in, too. I saw the way he was looking at her, Ness. He had the same look in his eyes his dad used to get when he would talk about her.”

“So, you have heard of her then?”

“Yeah. She tried to kill Chris and stole loads of money off them and all sorts. From what I have heard on the grapevine in the village throughout the years she really isn’t a nice person.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Talk to him. See why he did it and work out where we go from there. I really need to find a way of keeping him off the police’s radar.”

“Ooohhhhh….” Vanessa rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “That’s why you…..You got yourself arrested on purpose, didn’t you?”

Charity nods.

Vanessa groans. “I’ve totally screwed that up, haven’t I!”

“No, babe, you haven’t. To be honest I put the blame on Joe. The copper may have acted like she wasn’t buying what I was saying, but I could see the clogs working in her brain. Joe doing a runner the day she does a fall fits nicely, doesn’t it?”

Vanessa smirks. “Clever girl.”

Charity laughs and runs her thumb over Vanessa’s knuckles. “If they do come back for me though, which they may still do, I need to know what you said to them. Thankfully I told the officer who arrested me last night that I was in the loo, so that was written down when I got to the station, but I need to know what you said. I didn’t give them any more information than that.”

Vanessa blushes. “Well, I said I needed to make a statement and give you an alibi because I was with you when Kim fell. So, they took me into a little room and this female officer came in to take my statement. I thought I could get away with saying we were in the loo together, you know, implying what we were doing. I think she wanted to work out if I was lying, so she made me be descriptive.”

Charity narrows her eyes. “How descriptive.”

Vanessa huffs and starts talking at an alarmingly fast pace. “Well, she asked why we went to the loo in the first place, so I said we were a little worked up from seeing each other in our dresses and that we couldn’t wait until we got home. I thought she would leave it at that but no she asked what happened when we got into the loo, so I said we started power necking and then it lead to more. She asked what exactly I meant by more, so I said you know, more than just a hot snog and a grope. She asked again what I meant by more, so I ended up losing my rag and started shouting at her. I told her exactly what she wanted to hear.”

“Which was?”

“That when Kim was pushed you were sat on the edge of the sink, with you dress up to your hips and I was on my knees eating you out, so we didn’t hear anything that had happened. She didn’t even blink! She just carried on talking. She said she found it hard to believe that we didn’t hear the crash and I said if you heard how loud my girlfriend screams when she comes then you would trust me when I say we didn’t hear anything. I might have also added in that it is hard to hear anything with your thighs pressed tight against the side of my head.”

Charity stares at her girlfriend in shock before she laughs harder than she has in a long time. Her girlfriend, her saviour, is a constant surprise.

“Babe, I would have paid to have seen that.” Charity wiggles her eyebrows at her girlfriend. “Very hot though. We should have definitely done that. You did look fucking amazing in that dress. I am gutted I didn’t get to slowly peal it off your body.”

Vanessa gives her a saucy grin. “I can still peal yours of your body though.”

Charity lets out a frustrated sigh. “We can’t. I need to speak to Noah.”

Vanessa leans over and kisses Charity’s jaw. “He isn’t expecting us for a while. I didn’t know how long we were going to be, but I said it could be hours. Come on, let me show you exactly what I was thinking about when I was talking to that officer.”

Charity squeals as Vanessa pulls the side leaver on the chair, lowering it so that Charity is lying almost horizontal. Before she has a chance to speak Vanessa climbs over Charity’s lap and into the passenger foot well. She gives Charity a sexy smirk as she gently starts to caress Charity’s ankles.

“You sure you don’t want to do this?”

Desire shoots through Charity’s body and into her core. There will never be a time when she doesn’t want Vanessa. Never. And she knows she should say no, and that Vanessa will immediately comply, but she doesn’t want to.

“Well, you have pulled my leg now, babe, haven’t you,” Charity says with a jokey roll of her eyes. “Make it quick though, yeah. I have got a son to go and strangle.”

Vanessa winks as she slowly starts to lift Charity’s dress up her legs. “Oh, baby, don’t you worry, I know a few tricks that will have you screaming as loud as I told that officer in no time.”

 

11/01/19- Hotten General Hospital.

 

“God you have corrupted my sister! She’s not only giving you false alibi’s but she’s….” Tracey waves her hand at her own lap. “Doing that in public! In a car!”

“It was the backroad. No one ever goes down there.”

“I know but still!”

Rhona laughs. “So, what happened after that, well after Moses got to stay with you? Because she hasn’t mentioned any major dramas.”

“Well, Noah getting kicked out of school, me punching Marlon, doing what I did to dawn and then falling out with Ryan is probably as dramatic as it has got.”

“She is so happy though,” Tracey says with a dreamy smile. “She’s been especially happy since you two moved in together. I didn’t think I have ever seen her smile as much as she did the day she moved in with you.”

“We were both happy. I was ecstatic. I thought it was going to be months before we managed to live together. That first night was……it felt like the start of something really special. She felt the same way.”

How was your first night living together? I bet it was just, sex, sex, sex and more sex, right?”

Charity laughs. “Well, you would think that, but it wasn’t.”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your comments and kudos :)


	17. Seventeen

“How was your first night living together? I bet it was just, sex, sex, sex and more sex, right?”

Charity laughs. “Well, you would think that, but it wasn’t.”

13/12/18- The Woolpack.

Charity lets out a groan as she brings the last box in to her bedroom. She takes a step back and surveys the carnage in her bedroom. There are half empty boxes everywhere. Most of them are full of clothes and everything from Vanessa’s bedroom. 

It was crazy how much stuff Vanessa has accumulated over the years, and how much of that she is reluctant to throw away. She owns three hairdryers for Christ sake! Charity walks over to her wardrobe and places her hands on her hips as she tries to work out where most of Vanessa’s clothes are going to go. She herself has two chest of draws, one that is practically empty, so a lot can go in there. But Vanessa also has a lot of stuff that she insists must be hung up. 

They are going to have to buy another wardrobe. A smaller, thinner one will do. They might have to buy another shoe rack, too. Vanessa, who only ever seems to wear her flats or converses, owns nearly thirty pairs of shoes. 

Charity smiles as she looks around her bedroom. She has been doing a lot of the unpacking up here whilst Vanessa has been sorting out everything at her house. She is used to seeing Vanessa’s things in her room. Her spare hairbrush and make-up set have been sat on Charity’s dressing table since they became official. 

However, seeing all their stuff together and knowing that it is permanent makes her feel things she never really has in a relationship before. Safe, happy, content, loved. Vanessa didn’t want to move into the pub. She made that clear. They had a talk about where to live a few days after they decided to live together, and Vanessa was clear again on the fact that she didn’t like the idea of living in the pub. 

If Charity was being honest it hadn’t really crossed her mind either. She would lie in bed with Vanessa and imagine them in their own home with the three boys. A real family home. But the pub, as crazy and as busy as it was, felt like a home to her. It is one of the first places she has lived in where she hadn’t slightly felt out of place, or like she wasn’t good enough to be living there. 

Jai’s house is beautiful, but she always felt like she was intruding. Especially with his entire family living there, too. Home Farm is another place that has never felt like home. She always felt like she wasn’t good enough to be there. Living in a house like that really reminds a person of where they have come from.  The pub however is homely. She has felt comfortable here since day one, as has Noah. Chas living in the pub and supporting her when she came out of prison helped too. She loves being around her family. She loves living in the heart and soul of the village. 

She closes her wardrobe and turns to look back at the boxes. They have tried to get as much of the unpacking done today, but they knew they wouldn’t get it all done. Their plan of action is for Vanessa to get it all done tomorrow whilst Charity is in court with Debbie. 

Charity walks out of her bedroom and heads to Moses’s room. Johnny thankfully doesn’t have as much stuff as his mother. His clothes took up just four boxes, but it doesn't really matter anyway as he and Moses end up sharing clothes a lot of the time. His toys however, that was another matter. Charity wasn’t sure where they were going to go. 

She walks into Moses room and stops dead in her tracks. All the boxes with Johnny’s toys and clothes in have gone. She knows Vanessa hasn’t unpacked them because they are planning on going through both boys toys and seeing what they are going to keep. Charity also needs to have a clear out of Moses’s clothes, so Vanessa wouldn’t have started putting Johnny’s clothes away.

She walks back out of Johnny’s room and heads down the corridor. She slows down when she sees Grace’s bedroom door open and the light on. Charity has never seen that door open before. She hesitates before looking into Grace’s bedroom, feeling like she is invading Chas and Paddy’s personal space. Her breath catches in her throat and her eyes sting with tears when she sees the beautifully decorated room full of Johnny’s stuff. 

This was their baby girl’s room. The baby girl they lost. The baby girl who will never get to appreciate her Daddy’s hard work. The little girl who will never feel the love put into this room. This is their special place. A place they come to remember Grace. She hears them in here sometimes. She hears them mourning for her in here. 

A tear slips down her cheek as what she is seeing sinks in. They are giving Johnny’s Grace’s room. They are welcoming Johnny and Vanessa to the home in the most incredible way possible.  She walks downstairs and into the living room. She gently mentions the fact that Johnny’s things are in Gracie’s room. Vanessa’s shock is identical to Charity’s. Chas and Paddy seem happy with their decision though. If they are happy then Charity is happy. 

The rest of the evening goes by in a flash. They order in a Chinese from Hotten and they all sit around the kitchen table together. Charity watches Noah and Vanessa interact, glad that Noah seems happy to have Vanessa around. She wasn’t sure if he would kick off. She never knows how is going to react to things nowadays, but he seems cool with it.

They put Johnny to bed in Moses’s room. He is exhausted after being allowed to stay up later than normal. Noah disappears off to his room not long after they put Johnny to bed. Chas and Paddy go off into the pub for a drink, leaving Vanessa and Charity alone in the backroom. 

“I am exhausted,” Vanessa says as she breaks down a box that had some of her kitchen utensils in it. 

Vanessa didn’t have a lot furniture wise because Tug Ghyll was fully furnished when she moved in. She has that awful arm chair that Charity is hoping she will forget about, and she has some draws in her bedroom, but she was going to leave them behind. 

“So am I, babe. This moving lark is tiring.”

Vanessa laughs softly as she drops the box onto the pile with the rest of them. They are going to put them out with the cardboard rubbish from the pub in the morning. “Especially when you weren’t planning on moving. It has been hectic, that’s for sure.”

Charity walks slowly towards her girlfriend. “You…..You were being honest weren’t you when you said you’re not having second thoughts?”

Vanessa smiles and reaches for Charity’s hands. She pulls Charity in closer and wraps her arms around her girlfriends neck. “Charity Dingle, I am not having second thoughts.”

“Because I know you didn’t want to move in here,” Charity continues as if Vanessa hasn’t just spoken. She speaks in a rush, which is a clear sign she is nervous. “I know it isn’t ideal. I mean, we won’t be able to snuggle up on the sofa in the evenings and watch a film without Paddy and Chas interrupting us every five minutes. Nor will they, now I am thinking about it. And—”

“Charity!” Vanessa all but has to shout to get her girlfriend attention. “Charity, will you just listen for a second, please.”

“What, and change the habit of a lifetime?”

Vanessa rolls her eyes. “Charity, I—”

Paddy stumbles into the living room, looking around frantically. “Has anyone seen my phone? I really need it. I need to show Chas a picture.”

“Eww, Padster, I am sure she doesn’t want to see any of your dirty pictures!”

Paddy goes bright red, just as Charity expected, and then starts stuttering, just like Charity expected.

“It..it…it…it isn’t a dirty picture. Well, it is, but not in that way. It is a cow that’s had twins. Chas wants to see the picture.”

Vanessa scrunches up her nose. “What cow?”

“Mr Brandson’s number seventy-five.”

“Awwww. When did she have them? What did she have?”

“Two girls. This morning apparently. Mr Brandson went out this morning and found her pushing the second one out.”

“Both healthy? Good weight?”

Charity looks between the two of them as if they have both grown a second head. “Wait, you are still talking about cows, right? Animals?”

Paddy nods as he pushes past them into the kitchen. “Yes. Aha! Found it!”

Chas walks in next, looking tired and bored. “I thought it had lost you Paddy. I can’t be bothered to sit out there. Kerry and Dan are having a domestic again, and I feel like knocking them out. Let’s just watch some tele for a bit before bed.”

Charity sighs and rests her lips against Vanessa’s forehead. “See?” Charity whispers against Vanessa’s skin.

Vanessa squeezes her hip and smiles at Chas. “There is a good thriller on tonight. If Paddy can stomach it.”

Paddy lets out his high pitch giggle. “Of course I can.”

Vanessa smirks before looking back at Chas. “We are going to head upstairs. I am knackered.”

Chas smiles softly at the two women. “I bet you are. Goodnight the pair of you.”

Charity just smiles as Vanessa bids them both a goodnight. She gently takes Charity’s hand and guides her out of the living room and up the stairs. They knock on Noah’s door to wish him goodnight and check in on Johnny who is fast asleep. 

They walk to their room and Charity closes the door behind them. She sighs and leans back against it.  “See, this is where you realise that what just happened downstairs is going to be a regular occurrence and you have made a monumental mistake.”

Vanessa places her hands on Charity’s hips and rests her body against the taller woman’s, pushing Charity further into the door. “Charity….Let’s get sorted for bed, and then we can have a talk, ok?”

Charity nods slowly. She is convinced that once they were tucked up in bed Vanessa is going to say this can only be temporary, or heaven forbid, she thinks she should move back into Tug Ghyll. Nothing good lasts for Charity. Although having someone move in with her and then out again within twenty-four hours would be a record, even for her. 

They go about their bedtime routine in silence. It isn’t an awkward silence though. Vanessa hums as she brushes her teeth, she sings softly as she removes her make-up and gets changed into her PJ’s. She seems happy and comfortable with the conversation they are about to have. The conversation Charity is now dreading. 

Charity climbs into bed and waits for Vanessa to join her. She watches as the vet applies some moisturiser to her face. Vanessa is so beautiful that at times Charity can hardly believe she is hers. She thought before they got together that Vanessa was attractive, but now she knows the person behind the face, the heart that is the biggest and the most beautiful Charity has ever seen, Charity can confidently say without a doubt that Vanessa is the most beautiful woman in the world. 

She wouldn’t survive losing Vanessa. Her heart would never recover. At nearly forty-three years of age she finally got it. She finally got what people meant when they spoke about all consuming love. She finally had it, and she will fight to the death to keep it. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Charity shakes her head, not realising how deep she has gone into her own head. “Like what?”

Vanessa walks over to the bed, but instead of going to her side she pulls the covers of Charity’s lap, replacing the covers with her body. Charity smiles and rests her hands on her girlfriends’ thighs. She has never liked having someone’s body weight pressing down on her for long. It brought back memories she is constantly trying to forget. But with Vanessa it is different. Vanessa’s weight bearing down on her doesn't feel suffocating. It doesn’t make her feel like she is trapped. 

“Like you love me and, at the same time, you want to devour me,” Vanessa answers, pressing a soft lingering kiss on Charity’s lips.

“So, like I normally look at you then?”

Vanessa smiles like that cat that got the cream. “Kind of. Sometimes you look annoyed with me, especially when I am right. Which, if I remember rightly,  yesterday you said that I always am.”

Charity barks out a laugh. Vanessa is never going to let her forget she said that. “I don’t remember saying that,” she jokes as she runs her hands up and down the outside of Vanessa’s thighs. 

“Well, I do, and I won’t let you forget it.”

“Oh, babe, don’t I know it.”

“So, back to our conversation earlier…”

Charity tenses and Vanessa frowns. 

“Why are you worried?”

“What? I am not.”

“Charity, you just went as tight as a bow. What’s wrong?”

Charity looks down and starts picking at a loose thread on Vanessa’s PJ bottoms. “Just waiting for you to realise you rushed into this too fast. That moving in here really as a monumental mistake.”

Vanessa cups Charity’s face and gently encourages the woman below her to look at her. Once Charity’s eyes meet her Vanessa brings their lips together. It is a soft, slow kiss. The only person who has ever kissed Charity like this is Vanessa, and she loves it. 

Vanessa pulls away but keeps her hands-on Charity’s cheek. “Charity, not following you into the cellar would have been a monumental mistake. Not sleeping with you for the second time would have been a monumental mistake. Not giving you a second chance after you messed me around would have been a monumental mistake. Not fighting for you, for us, after I called the police, would have been a monumental mistake. Losing my rag with you and breaking up with you every time you have had a crisis would have been a monumental mistake.” Vanessa takes a deep breath and rests her forehead against Charity’s. “Moving in with you, in here, will never be a monumental mistake. I love you Charity. I love you so much. I just want to be with you. I want to be with you and our boys.”

Charity’s eyes sting with unshed happy tears. “Babe, I love you too. I’m just worried it might be all a bit too much. Like I said earlier, we won’t get much privacy and—”

Vanessa cuts her off with a quick kiss. “Charity, we hardly got any anyways.” Vanessa laughs and slips her hands into Charity’s hair. She starts to massage Charity’s scalp, lightly scratching with her nails in the way that Charity loves. “The way is see it is this. Yes, we will be living with Paddy and Chas, but we can still get our own time. We won’t be able to have much alone time till the boys have gone to bed anyway. That has always been the case. If you are working the late then I will just either sit in the bar with you or wait for you to come to bed, like I have always done. On the nights you are not working the late Chas probably will be, so we will have the living room to ourselves because Paddy always sits out in the bar with her. He always has, even when you stayed at Tug Ghyll.”

“That’s because he is a proper cling on.”

Vanessa smirks. “Or, we can just come up here. We can snuggle in bed and watch the tv. Charity, I don’t mind living with Paddy and Chas. I really don’t. I just…..I just want to be with you. A hundred people could be living in this house and I would still be happy here with you and the boys.”

“Soppy cow,” Charity whispers affectionately. 

Vanessa is so open and honest with her feelings. Charity has gotten better since they got together. She was the first one to say those three special words after all. But Vanessa speaks about her feelings more freely. It was such a refreshing change to her partners in the past who often only declared their feelings after she had. 

Vanessa told her she loved her the other day because Charity made her a brew without Vanessa asking her to. Moments like that made her realise just how lucky she is to have found Vanessa. 

“I am a soppy cow, but only for you.”

Charity grins. “And I for you.”

Vanessa snorts. “Don’t I know it. No one else gets to see the soft side of you and I love that. I love that the soft side is reserved for me.”

Charity kisses Vanessa’s nose before whispering. “Always.”

“So, anyway, like I was saying, I am happy here. We will make it work. The only reason I didn’t want to move here was because I never really liked the idea of living in a pub. I mean, it’s a pub, I never saw myself as someone who would live above a pub.”

“Oh what is it too below you?” Charity teases. 

“No! I just never imagined that I would like to live somewhere so hectic. I don’t think it will be though. I think once we get a routine with the boys going, and with your work and my work everything will just fall into place.”

Charity moves her hands up Vanessa’s thighs. She teases the waistband with her fingers as she thinks about what Vanessa has just said. “Yeah, you’re right. And the best thing is we get to fall asleep together every night and wake up with each other every morning for definite. We no longer have to work around the boys or work.”

Vanessa takes a deep breath. “That was actually the deciding factor for me.”

Charity frowns. “How do you mean?”

“Last night I was lying in bed, trying to get to sleep but missing you too much. As usual.”

“No one can blame you, babe.”

Vanessa giggles and runs her fingers down to the back of Charity’s neck, carrying on her massaging there.“I lay there, and I thought I would give anything for you to be there. All the time, not just last night, but all the time. I got thinking about our search for a house and how we hadn’t found anything suitable, and I was convinced it was going to take us months to find anywhere. It made me ache, the thought of not being with you full time for months, especially as it was all either of us could think about.”

“Same for me, babe.”

“So when you suggested moving into the pub today I just couldn’t say no. Like I said, I don’t care where we are. I just want to be with you.”

Charity kisses Vanessa, her heart feeling like it could burst. She starts the kiss off slowly, but it quickly deepens. She is about to roll them over, so she’s the one on top when she feels Vanessa yawn against her mouth.

“Wow, am I boring you?”

Vanessa laughs. “Of course not. I could kiss you all day. I am just so tired.”

Charity’s eyes feel heavy too. “Same.”

Vanessa pouts. “We really should be having celebratory sex right now.”

Charity laughs and eases her hand up Vanessa’s PJ top. “We can have celebratory sex in the morning. You need sleep. You look exhausted, babe.”

Vanessa scowls. “I was going to say I need you more than sleep, but I think you have just inadvertently said I look rough.”

Charity shakes her head. “You always look beautiful.”

Vanessa captures Charity’s lips. “Show me then,” she mutters, using the words Charity said to her four months before. 

“As long as you don’t yawn again. It’s not very sexy, babe.”

Vanessa groans. “Shut up and kiss me, Charity.”

Charity is sure her smile is so bright it could be seen from outer space. “Whatever you say, Tiny Blonde Rocket Woman.”

11/01/19- Hotten General Hospital

“I wasn’t sure how serious you too would become after you got together. I never thought it would get to this point.”

Charity agrees with Tracey. “She has a way of getting into your heart and never letting go. She is amazing.”

“She is,” Rhona agrees. “She was one of the most popular people at University. Everyone just fell in love with her. Ninety percent of that was platonic love, of course. She did leave a little trail of broken hearts behind her.”

Charity grips Vanessa’s hands. “I feel for them. I don’t know how I would cope if I lost her.”

“Neither do I,” Tracey says. “Having her as my sister is the biggest blessing. She…..I love her.”

“I love her more,” Rhona argues jokingly. 

“I think we know who loves her the most,” Tracey says nodding towards Charity.

The nurse walks back in and checks Vanessa’s obs again. She confirms, again, that everything is as they would expect it to be before quietly leaving the room.

“I do love her,” Charity says softly as she looks at the two other women in the room. “I love her more than I knew I was capable of loving someone else. I love her more than I have loved anyone else before. If I lost her, I know I would never love anyone else as much as I love her. I…..I love her.”

Charity’s world freezes as she feels a small squeeze to her left hand and a tiny, croaky voice say, “I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the kudos and comments :)


	18. Eighteen

“I love her.”

“I love you too….”

11/01/19- Hotten General Hospital

“Babe?” Charity jumps up.

Vanessa’s eyes flutter and she gently squeezes Charity’s hand. 

“Babe, can you hear me?”

“Yes,” Vanessa whispers. 

Charity’s heart pounds in her chest as relief sweeps through her body. She never thought she would be so happy to hear Vanessa’s voice, anyone’s voice, as she is right now. She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes, allowing the relief and happiness to wash through her. She will take this small moment for herself before giving Vanessa her full attention. 

Rhona jumps up and runs out of the room to get a nurse whilst Tracey runs to the other side of Vanessa’s bed. Vanessa’s eyes slowly open before closing again, the bright light in the hospital room causing them to sting. 

“Vanessa, take it easy. Rhona has gone to get a doctor.”

“Where am I?”

“Hospital. Remember, you got attacked outside the pub?” Tracey says gingerly, not wanting to upset her sister.

Vanessa’s eyes open wide and she tries to sit up. Charity gently urges her to lie down. 

“Where is Johnny? Where is my boy?”

“Babe, it’s fine. We got him back. He is with your dad. He is fast asleep. He has no idea what happened.”

Tears fill Vanessa’s eyes and she winces as she tries to move. Charity again tries to urge her to stay still. 

“Babe, please don’t move. Rhona has gone to get the doctor.” 

Charity’s eyes water as she looks into the beautiful, bright blue eyes she adores. She leans forward and presses a gentle kiss to Vanessa’s forehead. She lingers, breathing her in, and vowing that she will never, ever let anything happen to her again. 

“You scared the life out of us, V,” Tracey says.

“Sorry,” Vanessa croaks out, her eyes filling with tears. “I am sorry. I just…”

The door swings open and the doctor walks in with Rhona right behind her. She smiles at Charity and Tracey, moving to stand next to Charity.

“Vanessa, it is good to have you back with us.”

Vanessa gives her a weak watery smile. 

“Do you need us to leave?” Tracey asks.

“No, no. You can stay. I am just going to ask Vanessa a few questions though.”

The doctor quickly gets to work, asking Vanessa how she feels, how her pain level is, if she has any burning or numbness sensations. She explains gently exactly what injuries Vanessa suffered. How long both operations were and exactly what happened. She also explains the aftercare Vanessa is going to have to go through. She administers some more painkillers before saying a nurse will be round to check on her soon. 

“You all won’t be able to stay now she has come around,” the doctor says before she leaves. “Only one of you can stay.”

Both Rhona and Tracey look at Charity with a smile. 

“I think we know who will be staying,” Tracey says with a soft smile. 

Charity smiles in thanks. She is glad Tracey isn’t kicking off, demanding she stay instead of Charity. They stay for another half an hour. Vanessa quickly fell back to sleep because of the painkillers. Rhona and Tracey both leave, promising to be back in the morning. 

Charity sits and watches Vanessa sleep, relieved beyond words that she is going to be ok. She watches the rise and fall of Vanessa’s chest and listens to the steady beat of her heartbeat. She has no idea how long she sits there for before her phone starts going off in her pocket. 

She has a messages from Chas, Noah, Debbie, and Marlon asking how she is. She replies to them all with the same message. “She is ok. She’s woke up. She still has a long way to go. She’s a fighter though so she will be fine.”

Charity shoves her phone back into her pocket and relaxes back into her chair. She smiles as her eyes start to feel heavy. She is fine. Everything is going to be fine. 

******

“Charity!”

Charity’s eyes spring open and she all but falls out of her chair as she jumps up and grasps Vanessa’s hand. “Babe! What’s wrong?”

Vanessa smiles. “I’m hungry.”

“You’re…..” Charity laughs and drops her forehead onto Vanessa’s. “You scared the life out of me. Are you allowed to eat anything?”

Vanessa shrugs. “I have no idea. Can you go and find out for me?”

Charity kisses her gently. “I’ll do anything for you, babe. Anything.”

Vanessa smiles again. “I know. And, well, there is something else you could do for me as well.”

“What’s that?”

“Have a wash. Brush your teeth maybe?”

Charity’s moth drops open in shock. “Babe, I have spent all night here, right by your side, and all you can say is have a wash?”

Vanessa lets out a little laugh and Charity’s heart skips a beat. God, she loves that sound. 

“You stink a bit. I am so……I can’t express what it means to me that you have stayed here and not left my side. I—”

“I love you, babe. I was never going to leave here without you.”

Vanessa’s eyes water. “I love you too. And I would quite like to kiss you again. So, go and get me some food and get yourself a toothbrush.”

Charity laughs. “Whatever you say.”

She never thought she would ever say it, but god she’s missed her bossiness. The sooner she is better, the sooner Charity can have her back at home bossing her around again. 

******

“Noah! Have you got everything ready for school?”

Noah walks into the living room at a snail’s pace and Charity growls. 

“Yeah, why?”

“You said you wanted a lift! I want to get to the hospital, so can you please get a shift on.”

Chas sighs and gives Noah a sympathetic smile. “You should have never asked for a lift, darling. You should have heard her shouting at Tracey and Frank yesterday. She was so loud the landlord from the pub in Demdyke called and asked what was going on.”

Noah laughs as he grabs his shoes. “I can imagine.”

Charity scowls at them both. “Oh, I am sorry for being worried sick about the woman I love and being desperate to see her.”

Noah smiles. “She’s alright now, so what’s the rush?”

“Because I can bring her home!” Charity shouts. “So, get a move on.”

Noah points to the ceiling. “I just need to grab my bag.”

Charity sighs and places her hand on her hips. 

“Have you thought about how you are going to show her that you can’t imagine living without her?” Chas asks as she takes her empty plate over to the sink. 

Chas knows her cousin loves Vanessa. Everyone in the village can see how crazy they are about each other, but she had no idea just how much. Chas had never seen her cousin look so scared, the fear and panic in Charity’s eyes when Paddy told Charity that Vanessa had taken a turn for the worse was something that Chas will never forget. 

Charity has hardly slept since it happened either. Chas can hear her pacing her bedroom at night and calling the hospital every hour on the hour to make sure Vanessa is still ok. When she came back from the hospital yesterday her comment about not being able to imagine living without Vanessa was another thing she never expected to hear her cousin say. 

She can’t imagine how Charity is going to show Vanessa how much she means to her, but knowing her cousin it is going to be something eccentric.

“Yeah, I have.”

Chas walks back to the kitchen table with a curious smile on her face. “And?”

Noah runs into the living room. “I’m ready.”

Charity smiles at Chas. “I will tell you later.”

Chas smiles. “Ok.”

******

Charity pulls up outside the front of the pub and turns off her car engine. She reaches over and grabs Vanessa’s hand. “You ready to come home?”

Vanessa grips Charity’s hand. “I am…..But why have you parked around the front?”

“I…..I wasn’t sure how you would feel about going around the back. I wasn’t sure if you would be ready yet?”

Vanessa lets her head drop back against the headrest. “Charity, I will be fine. It is our home. I don’t feel scared. And, I don’t fancy walking through the pub looking like this,” Vanessa says gesturing down at her clothes. 

She rang Charity and asked her to bring in some comfortable clothing. Nothing tight for the top or bottom. Charity chose a pair of joggers from Vanessa’s ‘comfortable clothes’ stash, and she brought one of her own t-shirts for Vanessa to wear. Their height and slight weight difference meant it hung off Vanessa. She is wearing a blue hoodie Tracey went and picked out for her over the top of Charity's t-shirt. She thinks she looks rough, but Charity thinks she looks beautiful. 

“As long as you are sure?”

“Yes, Charity, I am sure.”

Charity turns the engine on and puts the car into first gear. She reaches for Vanessa’s hand again as she drives around the back of the pub. She expects Vanessa’s grip on her hand to tighten but it doesn’t. Vanessa takes a deep breath and calmly looks at the damage the fire caused. 

“If I hadn’t stopped him it would have been a lot worse.”

“I’d rather you hadn’t stopped him, babe,” Charity answers honestly. 

Vanessa looks away from the fire damage and back at her girlfriend. “This is your home, Charity, your job.”

Charity leans over and cups Vanessa’s face in her hands. “And you are my girlfriend, my world. You, Vanessa, are irreplaceable, the pub isn’t. Insurance will sort that out. There is nothing anyone would have been able to do to help me if you’d……”

Vanessa leans forward and kisses Charity, cutting her short. “I love you.”

Charity smiles against Vanessa’s mouth. “I love you, too. Come on, lets get you inside.”

Chas, Tracey, Frank and Paddy are inside waiting when Charity gently helps Vanessa into the living room. Vanessa greats them all with her trademark smile as she sits down on the sofa. They all give her a gentle hug and welcome her home. 

Charity listens as Vanessa answers questions from Paddy about her after care. She rolls her eyes when he reminds her how to check for a wound infection, like Vanessa wouldn’t know how to do that anyway. 

Charity thinks back to the after care instructions they got from the discharge nurse. There was so much Vanessa can and can’t do. She can’t lift, drive, do anything strenuous, for at least sex weeks. Not only has the outside wound got to heal but the inside ones too. 

The amount of internal damage that was caused is still something Charity can’t wrap her head around. Vanessa told her the wound wasn’t bad, and while she had been bleeding the bleeding wasn’t as bad as one would expect. Then again, the blood was leaking on the inside more than it was on the outside. 

Charity saw the wound when the nurse changed her dressing before they left. It looks awful still, very red and swollen, but Charity knows it is going to be her favourite part of Vanessa. It is going to be a constant reminder of how brave and how strong her little woman is. 

“Anyone want a cuppa?” Charity asks. 

Vanessa looks around the living room anxiously. “Where are the boys?”

“Noah is in school and Ross has agreed to keep Moses for a few more days, just until you feel more comfortable. Johnny is with Rhona and on his way over as we speak,” Charity answers. 

Vanessa smiles and is just about to speak again when Rhona and Johnny walk through the door. Vanessa’s smile is the biggest Charity has ever seen it as she holds her arms out for her little boy. He doesn’t jump onto her lap like he normally would. Charity told him last night that he has to be gentle with Mummy’s belly and he can only cuddle her arms or legs, so she laughs when he wraps his little arms around her legs. 

Everyone slowly starts to leave them to it. Rhona and Paddy leave first to head back to work, with Tracey and Frank leaving not long after. Noah comes back from school and gives Vanessa a one-armed shoulder hug, surprising the hell out of all of them. 

Charity does Johnny’s bedtime routine with him before going back downstairs and waking her now sleeping girlfriend. She is being stubborn about taking the painkillers they have given her. She mentioned what Rhona went through, saying she didn’t want to become hooked on them either and she would only take them when she needed them rather than just taking them every four hours for the sake of it. From the looks of things she has taken them and they have knocked her right out, just like the doctor said they would.

Charity practically has to carry her upstairs. She undresses her and redresses her in some baggy PJ’s she brought especially for Vanessa to wear whist she recovers. Vanessa barely registers Charity when she says she is going to head back downstairs and get a drink, the painkillers and the past few days just taking it out of her. 

Charity checks on Johnny before slowly creeping downstairs. Chas is sat at the kitchen table with a glass of wine. She points at the bottle, silently offering Charity a glass.

“No, thanks. I want to be fully……aware, in case she needs me.”

Chas nods in understanding. Charity grabs a bottle of water from the fridge, in case Vanessa wakes up thirsty, and fills a small glass for herself. 

“So, you said you were going to tell me how you plan on showing her you can’t imagine living without her.”

Charity leans against the back of one of the kitchen chairs. “I did, didn’t I.”

Chas nods slowly. “Yes…..So how are you going to do it?”

Charity smiles. “Fancy coming shopping with me tomorrow?”

Chas frowns. “Um, yeah fine, by why? What are you going to buy her?”

“An engagement ring. I am going to ask her to marry me.”

Chas squeals and claps her hands together. Charity shushes her and nods towards the ceiling.

“Sorry, but I am so excited! I never thought it would be that!”

Charity sighs. “Neither did I to be honest. I mean, I love her and I knew I wanted us to have a future, a real, serious future, but I have never thought that far ahead. Now, I can’t imagine her not being by my side when Noah leaves to go to Uni, or when Moses and Johnny grow up. I want her to be by my side for the rest of my life, and I want us to be wives as we stand side by side.”

Chas smiles. “She’s softened you right up.”

Charity laughs. “I know.”

There was no point in denying it now. People have seen just how soft she was for Vanessa and she couldn’t care less. 

“So, shopping tomorrow then?” 

“Yes, Charity. I will come with you tomorrow.”

Charity smiles again and is about to walk off when she turns back to her cousin with a look of dread on her face. 

“What if she says no?”

Chas laughs. “Charity, that woman is crazy about you. There is no chance in hell she will say no.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

“How are you going to do it?”

Charity runs a hand through her hair. “I have absolutely no idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One chapter left :( Thank you all so much for your lovely comments and kudos. They mean the world.


	19. Nineteen

“How are you going to do it?”

“I have absolutely no idea.”

17/01/19- The Woolpack

Charity creeps down the stairs in the pub, trying her hardest to avoid the squeaky steps without falling arse over tit down the stairs. She walks into the kitchen and heads straight for the fridge. She grabs two bottles of cold water and is about to go back upstairs when she bumps right into Chas.

“Jesus! You scared me!”

Chas laughs. “Scared me too. Why are you sneaking around in the dark?”

Charity holds up the water bottles, then remembers Chas can’t actually see them. “I’m grabbing some water for me and Vanessa. Me, to help avoid the mini-hangover I know I am bound to wake up with, and Vanessa because her tablets make her mouth really dry.”

Chas walks round Charity and flicks on the light above the cooker. “Is she ok? She’s had a busy day.”

Charity leans against the counter. “She is probably fast asleep, but she’s ok. It……She did have a busy day. One that went completely wrong thanks to me.”

Chas smiles. “It all worked out alright in the end though. You’re getting married, she said yes.”

Charity smiles. “We are, she did.”

It has only been a matter of hours since Charity asked Vanessa, again, to marry her outside Home Farm. Her heart pounds with happiness as she thinks back to that moment, a moment she knows she will cherish for the rest of her life. 

She thought she had screwed up and lost Vanessa forever. She honestly wouldn’t have blamed Vanessa if she had left her. Stealing someone else’s proposal, making her think she had gone to all of that effort for her, and then finding out she hadn’t, must have been so humiliating and hurtful. 

“You will have to go away somewhere when she gets better, so you can celebrate properly.”

Charity wiggles her eyebrows. “We celebrated a bit when we got back.”

Chas looks shocked. “Charity! The woman’s just been stabbed!”

“I am well aware of that thank you. It wasn’t…….Well, the headboard wasn’t banging against the wall as it usually is. But it was soft, and gentle, and she initiated it. Not me.”

Chas looks like she doesn’t quite believe Charity, but thankfully she lets it go. “Is she asleep now?”

“She was drifting off when I came down here. So, she probably will be by the time I get back up there. Speaking of which…..”

“Oh, yeah, off you go. I’ll let you have a lie in if you want. My present to you both.”

Charity barks out a laugh as she walks towards the living room door. “You can buy us an actual present, and the boys will have us up at dawn anyway. But thanks.”

Charity waves at Chas over her shoulder and quickly makes her way quietly back up the stairs. She checks in on Johnny in his room and then Moses in his. Moses sleeps through anything, but someone can walk past the pub and hiccup and Johnny will hear them and wake up. 

Satisfied both boys are fast asleep she goes back to their room. She walks in, the room illuminated by the soft light coming from the street light outside. She goes to place Vanessa’s bottle of water on her bedside table, but jumps when she feels a hand brush against her leg. 

“Is everyone trying to scare me half to death tonight?” she mumbles. 

“What?” Vanessa asks, her voice taking on the deeper tone it often gets when Vanessa isn’t far off falling asleep.

“I just bumped into Chas downstairs, she scared me half to death, and now you’ve just done it.”

Vanessa giggles as she turns on her bedside lamp. Charity blinks as the bright light stings her eyes. 

“Sorry, babe.”

Vanessa is starting to call Charity babe more and more and she loves it. 

“It’s ok.” Charity makes her way round to her side of the bed. “Why aren’t you asleep?”

Vanessa grabs her bottle of water and unscrews the lid. “I was thirsty, and I don’t want to fall asleep without you. Not tonight. Tonight is too special.”

Charity smiles as she climbs into bed. She wraps her left arm around Vanessa’s shoulders, gently encouraging her fiancé to lean into her. 

“It is special. A night I won’t forget.”

Vanessa rests her head back against Charity’s shoulder and looks up at her. “You have quite the memory, so I have no doubt you will remember tonight.”

Charity looks down at Vanessa in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you seem to remember everything else that has happened between us really well. I must say, I was surprised with some of the details you remembered.”

Charity frowns in confusion before it hits her what Vanessa is on about. “You heard me….In the hospital?”

Vanessa nods and snuggles in closer to Charity. 

“So…..Did you just lie there with your eyes closed and listen to me or something?”

Vanessa shakes her head and takes another sip of her drink. “I couldn’t open my eyes. It was weird. I was really scared when I first became….not conscious, but aware that something wasn’t right. The last thing I remembered was being in the ambulance. The next thing I know I feel like I am being weighed down and I can’t open my eyes.”

Charity kisses Vanessa’s head. “Oh, babe, that must have been awful.”

“It was. I could hear the heart monitor beeping, but I couldn’t work out what it was. Then I heard you. Well, I felt you kiss my hand. You didn’t say anything, you just kept kissing my hand. It comforted me.”

Charity remembers that moment. It was a few hours after Vanessa had come out of her second operation. Tracey and Rhona had walked Frank and Johnny out to the car, leaving the two of them alone together for the first time since the stabbing. Charity hadn’t been able to find the words she needed to say to Vanessa. 

She hadn’t known what, if any, words could bring her girlfriend some comfort. She knows Vanessa loves having her hand held and kissed though, so in that moment she opted for that instead. She had hoped that Vanessa could feel her soft kisses and that she knew she was there. Knowing that Vanessa did feel those kisses, and it helped calm her, brings Charity a small dose of comfort. She felt so helpless in the hours that followed the stabbing. She didn’t feel like there was anything she could do to help Vanessa. 

“I’m glad it comforted you. Babe….I felt so helpless. I have never felt anything like it.”

Vanessa grabs the hand that is resting on her shoulder and interlinks their fingers. “I can’t imagine how I would have coped if the roles were reversed.”

Charity shifts slightly so she is more lying on her side, so she can see Vanessa’s face better. “So you heard every word?”

“Pretty much,” Vanessa says with a grin. “It was quite funny hearing it all from your point of view. I honestly thought the feelings I felt for you were one-sided. That I was just someone to warm your bed. Knowing you felt the same way I did, and so early on, was lovely.”

Charity kisses Vanessa softly. “You honestly didn’t realise how I felt? I mean, babe, I did chase you down main street, didn’t I.”

Vanessa laughs. “I know you did. That is one of my favourite memories. Especially what happened afterwards.”

Charity laughs this time. “Yeah, I liked that bit too.”

“I’m glad you didn’t go into too much detail about our sex life with Rhona and Tracey. I tell them enough as it is.”

Charity grins. “I’m aware. I didn’t want it to be about our sex life. I wanted it to be about more than that, because we are more than that.”

Vanessa curls her body into Charity’s. “We are. Even if our sex life is phenomenal.”

Charity kisses Vanessa, unable to stop herself from doing do. Vanessa pulls away and looks down at her left hand. She smiles her big beaming smile and her eyes start to water again. 

“I can’t believe we are engaged. I kinda wish I was stabbed after you proposed, then I would have been able to hear you tell them about that, too.”

Charity sighs. “I wish you hadn’t be stabbed at all, babe.”

Vanessa rolls her eyes. “Well, obviously.”

“But, if you hadn’t, then I probably wouldn’t have proposed. So, I suppose summat good has gone out of it.”

Vanessa frowns and starts biting on her bottom lip. It is a sure sign she is nervous. “Charity, can I ask you something?”

Charity kisses Vanessa’s bottom lip, soothing the sting from Vanessa’s bite. “You can ask me anything, Vanessa.”

“Did you…….You didn’t propose because you feel guilty, did you?”

Charity now frowns. “What do you mean?”

Vanessa slowly sits upright and crosses her legs. “I know you have been beating yourself up about what happened. The argument, then leaving me to go and find Johnny. I know it is still playing on your mind. I……I guess with all that and then you just saying you wouldn’t have proposed had I not been stabbed…..It just got me thinking, did you propose because you feel guilty?”

Charity sits upright too. She would always feel some level of guilt about what happened to her fiancé, but that was not the driving force behind her proposal and she needs Vanessa to know that.

“No, babe, that isn’t why I proposed.” She kisses Vanessa’s shoulder and then smiles as an idea comes into her head. “Hey, how about I tell you the story of our proposal, just like I told Rhona and Tracey the story of us?”

Vanessa’s eyes light up and she claps. “Yes! Yes please.”

Charity grins at her fiancé’s enthusiasm. “Ok then, get comfortable, Miss Woodfield.”

Vanessa giggles and lies back down as Charity does. She rolls onto her good side and Charity rolls onto her left side so they are facing each other. Charity tucks a stray lock of Vanessa’s hair behind her ear and takes a deep breath before she begins her, their, proposal story.

“I first realised when you were in theatre for the second time. I thought you were ok and then this doctor comes along and says that they need to take you back down. I was terrified that you were going to die. I honestly believed that god was messing with me, giving you back to me for a few precious hours before ripping you away from me for good.”

“I sat there, waiting and watching the doors to the theatre. I remember thinking that I honestly didn’t know how I would cope without you. When they wheeled you back out I thought I was going to faint I was so relieved. I refused to leave your side. I was certain that if I did, something bad would happen to you.”

“Then you came around. Hearing your voice and your laugh, seeing you smile and those blue eyes of yours was like a punch to the gut. I could have lost you. I could have spent the rest of my life never hearing your voice or your sweet laugh. I could have spent the rest of my life not seeing you smile or looking into your beautiful eyes.”

“I thought back on all the times your voice has soothed me through the tough times I went through last year. How you told me everything was going to be ok, and it always was. I thought about how your laugh made even the worst of my moods lift. I thought about how one smile from you can make me weak at the knees. I thought about how much love shines in your eyes when you look at me and the boys. And, in that moment, I couldn’t imagine living without any of it, without you.”

Charity smiles at Vanessa, who is completely entrapped by Charity’s words. 

“I came home and told Chas that I can’t imagine my life without you and you wouldn’t have known that if you’d…….” Charity takes a deep breath, refusing to say that word. “She told me I should show you how I feel and immediately I thought about marriage.”

“I love you, Vanessa. There is no doubt about that. But I really hadn’t thought about marriage before. Well, except on Christmas eve.”

Vanessa frowns. “What happened on Christmas eve?”

“The dray man called me Mrs Dingle, and I didn’t actually mind being called that. I remember thinking, maybe one day, but I thought it would be way off in the future.” Charity links their hands together, her thumb playing with Vanessa’s engagement ring as she continues her story. 

“I guess I got comfortable with how we were. And I was happy with that, so happy with it. I love having you by my side. I intended to have you by my side for the rest of my life anyways, but doing it as girlfriends didn’t seem right anymore.”

“Why?”

“Because marriage is more, isn’t it. It really is a full commitment that says to the rest of the world, ‘this person is mine and I am there’s’. Your comments about not being good enough really struck a cord with me, too. So, along with wanting you to know for sure that I want you by my side forever, I thought proposing would also show you that you are good enough for me.”

Vanessa smiles softly. “We are perfect for each other,” she whispers, repeating her words from earlier in the night. 

“We are,” Charity agrees with a smile. “I told Chas about my plan, and she came ring shopping with me. She was so excited.”

“Wait, did you go ring shopping when you left me unsupervised?”

Charity gives her a cheeky grin. “Yep.”

Vanessa laughs and looks down at her ring. “It is beautiful. You made the right choice.”

“It…..You didn’t want something flashier?”

“Nah, I am not materialistic.”

Charity barks out a laugh. “Chas said the same thing.”

Vanessa smiles. “So, Tracey said that you weren’t sleeping and you got in to a right panic about how to do it?”

“Yeah. I wanted it to be special, and I couldn’t really think of anything that felt like……enough. Well, I thought of something but Tracey and Chas basically said it was boring.”

“What was it?”

“A meal at that expensive roof top lounge in Leeds. I was going to do it over cocktails.”

“Awwww….I would have loved that.”

“For real?”

Vanessa nods. 

“I am going to kill your sister.”

Vanessa laughs and Charity smiles at the sound. 

“Hey, you should have never listened to her. She made David propose like a hundred times before she said yes.”

“That’s a good point,” Charity grumbles. 

“How did you end up stealing someone else’s proposal though?”

Charity sighs and runs her hand down Vanessa’s arm. “Like I said, I barely slept, and Tracey was going on and on about it. I was actually looking at the top twenty-five proposals this morning. Tracey suggested the hot air balloon, which should tell you how high her standards were for this.”

“I would have hated that.”

“I know, you don’t like heights, being such a little person and all.”

Vanessa narrows her eyes. “Why did I agree to spend the rest of my life with you again?”

Charity gives Vanessa her saucy grin as she leans across and kisses her. “Because you are the smartest woman in the world.”

“That’s debatable,” Vanessa grumbles. “Carry on.”

“Right, so I was losing my mind. I did want it to be really special. I wanted to show you how amazing you are. I did think about doing it in the cellar at one point, seeing as that’s where it all began, but it stinks down there and it’s freezing.”

“It may have begun down there, Charity, but like I said, where ever you are, that’s my special place.”

Charity’s heart skips a beat, just like it did when Vanessa first said those words. “Can I propose again so I can use that?”

Vanessa laughs and wraps her arm around Charity’s waist. “Twice is quite enough for one day, thank you.”

Charity joins in on the laughter before continuing. “I went outside the pub and I was searching for ideas on my phone when I heard Megan talking to Miles and she said he was planning and very OTT proposal. I didn’t even realise I was moving until I was half way towards Home Farm. It was like someone else had taken over my body. When I got there and I saw how perfect it all was…..It was like it was meant to be for us. It was the proposal I had been looking for.”

“I just needed to get rid of Miles though, so I tricked him into thinking I was Megan’s boss and then I locked him into a cupboard.”

“How did you even get him near a cupboard?”

“I told him there was a surprise in there for him.”

Vanessa snorts. “Good to see he is as stupid as he looks.”

“It was all so perfect, babe, and what I wanted for you. When you turned up…..you looked so happy. I knew I had done the right thing.”

Vanessa scowls. “Well, you didn’t, not really.”

Charity laughs. “I know the way I went about it was wrong. But his Mrs was always going to say no. That was a given. That is why he went so over the top. I wanted to go over the top to show you how amazing you are, not just to bribe you into saying yes. So, therefore, I felt like we deserved it more.”

Vanessa tuts and rolls her eyes. “Your way of thinking baffles me at times.”

Charity just grins. 

“I knew it was a huge mistake when I saw your face, when you realised that I hadn’t planned any of it. I felt like the biggest idiot. And it broke my heart to see you so devastated. When you walked away I was crushed. Absolutely crushed. I was convinced I had screwed it all up.”

“I was pretty mad at you.”

“I know, babe, and you had every right to be. I am just glad you came back.”

Vanessa grins. “Me, too.”

They lean in at the same time and share a tender, sweet kiss. 

“I am so glad you gave me a second chance after I outed you in the pub. I am so glad you gave me another chance after I tried to make you jealous. I am so glad you fought for us after you called the police. I am so glad that you never let any of my behaviour drive you away. Especially the time I threw the lasagne away. I am so glad you gave me that fake alibi and decided to be crazy enough to move in with me. I am so glad that you are the strongest, fiercest woman I know and that you survived the stabbing. I am so glad that you came back tonight. That you realised that we are perfect for each other.”

Tears fill Vanessa’s eyes. “So am I. So am I.”

“Because I am telling you this, babe. If you hadn’t come back tonight or I’d have lost you last week, I would have never recovered.”

Vanessa runs her finger down Charity’s nose. “You are strong. You would have built your life back up.”

“My life, maybe, but not my heart.” Charity grabs Vanessa’s hand and gently places it across her chest so her fiancé can feel the steady beat under the palm of her hand. 

“You have opened up my heart. For the first time in my life my heart is completely open. Because of you. Nothing breaks like a heart, babe, and mine would have been forever broken if I’d have lost you. Forever broken.”

A tear slips down Vanessa’s cheek as she says, “Well, it is a good thing that I am here to make sure that never happens, isn’t it.”

Charity smiles as she wipes away the errant tear. “Forever?”

“Forever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the kind messages throughout this fic. It is my first ever fanfic and I was so nervous about posting it, but all your wonderful comments gave me a real confidence boost, so thank you. I really hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think :)


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